Friday, June 4, 2010

Thursday, June 3rd, Napoli









Greetings!

Looking out our hotel window, across the street on the wall facing us, is a graffitied-art figure of an Isis-like woman in baggy pants, high-heeled shoes, and an armful of bombs. It's one of the best portraits in this city of graffiti, and begins the photos in this post.

We visited the National Archeological Museum today. Most of what we saw was from the period from the 5th Century BC to the 2nd Century AD. Filling several floors, the collections of the Farnese family, and from the materials discovered at Pompei were pretty stunning. Some of the large sculptures feature multiple figures in complex scenes. The collection also contains some works from Egyptian tombs, and a room dedicated an explanation of the restoration and interpretation of 1000 papyrus texts discovered in one of the Pompei palaces.

We spent more time in the afternoon walking through new sections of the downtown. Later, a subway carried us across town to the entrance to a large park, and a funicular near it brought us back to the hotel. As usual, just about the time we start to get to know a city, we run out of time to explore it.

Tomorrow, we’ll be heading out by car to Pompeii to see the site where Napoli’s most famous disaster took place. We're also going to try to travel up to Mount Vesuvius’s crater.

To see the photos we took today click on: Thursday in Napoli


Gregory

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