Naples: warmth in the heart - travel - Society - Tagesspiegel Facebook

My neighbor is on the way to Capri.They have been flying every year for 14 years, always in January.Capri in winter, a dream.But Naples?"For heaven's sake!" A cauldron of poverty, drugs, violence is that.You don't survive, and if so, you will be robbed.They may want to dare to go to the city for half a day - the cathedral, the museums are always beautiful.But a whole week?"Just take care of yourself!"

Before the airport terminal, I lose sight of the new acquaintances.Like all other tourists, they strive for the buses, towards Sorrent, Amalfi or Fährhafen, where the quick boats take off every hour, to Capri and Ischia.I climb the bus to the center of Naples together with Arabs, black Africans, a few Italians...After twenty minutes end station Piazza Garibaldi.It could also be the Djemaa el-Fna in Marrakech or the Place de l’Indépendence in Dakar.I hear Russian, Arabic, Chinese language scraps, street traders hold gold chains and sports shoes, even a laptop: "Good Price, Mister!Very good price! "

Not easy to get through the crowd to the hotel.But nobody pulls my suitcase out of my hand or slashes my bag.And the room is big, beautiful and costs fifty euros per night.An astonishing price for this hotel category.There are hardly any guests."At the moment it is rather quiet with us."The face with which the porter says leaves no doubt - he doesn't just mean the winter season.Neapolitan tourism is on the ground after a summer of the scandals-garbage-gau, gang shooting, football war-.

However, it is said that tourists are hardly endangered in Naples, even with special protection of the mafia, which is called Camorra here and washes their drug and smuggling money in numerous restaurants and hotels.Vacation under the protection of organized crime - I feel a good bit of safer.

The city center of Naples is like an architecture museum.Greeks, Romans, Normans, Staufer, Bourbons - everyone was here, they all left their temples, churches, palaces, 3000 years of history are present in the places and in the streets.

However, the faults of the globalized presence are just as present: black Africans crouch behind mountains of fake Gucci bags.Shoe and jewelry shops, even the famous Christmas crib carvers warn with signs of the economic deluge from the Far East: "Handicrafts!Nothing from China! ”After sunset lurk in the corners of the infamous Forcella district of minors, drug dealers.In addition, the infernal traffic roars, the garbage problem seems to be unsolved.This is how apocalyptic are presenting themselves to the future of Europe.

Nevertheless: there are tourists in the city.Travel groups that, directed by their leaders, push through the alleys of the old town and through the portals of the churches, anxiously handbags and photo apparatus.After two days of Naples, I not only feel safe, but also very authentic and would like to call loudly: "People, relax - you are traveling to the protection of organized crime!"

This city cannot be understood in a few hours.You have to take your time for your beauty and your mind.Then you feel the enormous energy that goes out of it.Naples, it works, will master the problems and not suffocate from them.

And then the residents!They are still nicer than the Italians in the rest of the country.The Neapolitan itself is considered warm anyway.But I have the feeling that in the openness and willingness to help that I meet everywhere swings even more: "We are not like our image.Here people live with decency and morality.Nice that you're here."

For Naples as a base camp, some attractions in the surrounding area are also speaking, which are difficult to reach from the tourist locations.Caserta, for example, the residence of some megalomaniac bourbon kings;Prefall and protatient to the disgust threshold, an over -baroque work, larger than versailles.Or the phlegraic fields, with their bubbling swamps and volcanic councilors who are still smoking properly.The Vesuvius is no longer doing smoking, it is only a moderately high, rather ugly mountain that spreads little volcanic atmosphere.You can climb to the edge of the crater, you can also leave it - you only have a good view with clear air anyway, and it is rare here.

Pompeii is also - admittedly at a high level - a disappointment.The system is in a desolate state, the status has not changed anything as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.Video surveillance was also of no use.Still thieves to steal statues and mosaics.Tourists also break off a stone every now and then.The most valuable art treasures, including almost all of the frescoes, have long been brought to safety in the National Museum.Pompeii is impressive - but in large parts no more than a rubble field today.

The actual sensation is Herculaneum, a small place between Pompeii and Naples.On the same day as Pompeii, he fell victim to the lava masses, but was only dug up again much later.

I stroll up and down the cobblestones for a whole morning.Make a stop at the Weinschenke, where the amphorae are still on the shelf.Have a look at the baker, in which you could still bake bread today.Admire the mosaics and painted walls in the house of his better -off neighbor...Everything seems so lively and close as if the host could come in in his tooga and ask for the table at the table.

After five days of Naples, a longing for calm.In the morning I take the first speedboat to Capri.Let's see if the island is really as beautiful as everyone claims.she is it.It is exactly as German Capri imagine: one hundred percent beautiful.Vineyards and apple trees, romantic ruins, cheerful people in white suits who do not demand more of life than exactly the multimillionaire villa on the mountain slope that they already own...

Paralyzes so much beauty.You sit there, stir in your perfectly brewed cappuccino - and indulge.That is why it is already later afternoon when I finally reach the jetty next to the legendary blue grotto.No boat is in sight that could sail into the grotto.I take off, jump into the water and swim into it, as Emperor Tiberius did (okay, he still had his harem with him).The water shines blue.Silent all -round.Occasionally chuckle.Capri: Hundred and fifty percent beautiful.

In a good two hours, the last speedboat will take off, take me back to the sea of lights, pizza and pasta, street music and Romanian Hütchen players...I'm looking forward to Naples!