Naples, way too much going on (Italy)

We take the train from Pompeii to Naples. We decide not to spend the night in Naples because we find our hotel in Pompeii very nice and very quiet—it’s better to do the round trip Pompeii – Naples than to drag our suitcases all the way to Naples, and then from Naples to Rome.

What a wise decision, because this city feels like pure chaos to me, a city swallowed by mass tourism and the incompetence of those in charge of keeping it clean. It’s crowded everywhere, absolutely everywhere, and the streets are disgustingly dirty, especially in tourist spots. I was shocked to see such a touristy city so poorly maintained. Marseille, by comparison, is the epitome of cleanliness.

All this stress calls for a Neapolitan pizza, right now! Here, takeout pizzas have one price, and dine-in pizzas have another. Unfortunately, this highly-rated pizzeria Tutino isn’t all that great. It’s fine if you’re just hungry, but other Neapolitan pizzas are better… in Palermo 🙁 sniffle!

We happen to walk past Sorbillo and it’s chaos! About a hundred people are waiting outside, with no clear order—the wait is at least 2 hours. People later tell me the wait is totally worth it, that it’s truly the best pizza in the world and all, but it’s way too stressful, lol!! I wouldn’t stand in line in that filth and chaos for anything.

We try to visit the Sansevero Chapel where incredibly lifelike sculptures are kept, but it’s fully booked for the rest of the day. So annoying! I thought about reserving, but totally forgot. Oh well, we’ll have to come back another time, during the week.

To find some peace, what better than to hide in the Cathedral of the Assumption in Naples? Inside, there’s a treasure museum full of pretty jewelry.

The cathedral is quite lovely, but I can’t wait to discover the paid section—which is interesting—behind that big door. It’s part of the museum of the Treasure of San Gennaro. Inside, there’s a collection of gifts from sovereigns, popes, and Neapolitan nobles. Its value is said to exceed that of the crown jewels of England and the Russian tsars, according to Le Routard.

I took jewelry-making classes, and since then, I absolutely adore seeing silver pieces in churches. Back then, there were still people skilled enough to make them, and people rich enough to buy them.

You don’t know where to look, because there are solid silver pieces so heavy and so beautiful. There’s a gilded silver and copper bust of Saint Irene, and lavish decorations on the walls and ceilings. It feels like you’re in a vault, not a cathedral.

The most impressive piece is this one: 8 kg of gold and silver, 3,328 diamonds, 198 emeralds, 168 rubies… never worn because it’s way too heavy. When you look closely, you can see that jewelry-making techniques have clearly improved since then. Thanks to our modern techniques, our powerful magnifying lenses, our computers that determine the best cut for diamonds, our advanced tools… our stones are much better cut and set than what we see here. Of course, such a piece would still be very expensive today, but the stones would definitely be better set, that’s for sure!

As a perfectionist, I pay close attention to details, and even though the emeralds are massive, they’re so poorly cut that I find them “meh” anyway, ahahaha 😀 It’s funny to think that we have better-cut stones now than the popes of old! Same with the pearls—there was a necklace full of pearls, but they were all asymmetrical and tiny 😀

What I love most are pieces like this, where you admire the metalwork more than the gem setting.

The more I look at these pieces, the more I think that colored stones are indeed prettier than diamonds. In “The Hobbit,” when Bilbo learned that elves preferred diamonds to colored stones, he couldn’t understand why… and he’s right! Diamonds are neither rare nor precious. But the emeralds here… so beautiful, so big… they’re truly rare and precious; too bad they’re so poorly cut. Emeralds belong to the beryl family, like aquamarine. But the rarity of emeralds comes from traces of chromium, which give them their green color. So, they’re only found in certain regions of the world, especially in Colombia and Brazil. Colombian ones remain superior in quality. If my jeweler were here, he could pull out his special lamp and tell me which countries these emeralds came from. Under his UV lamp, Colombian emeralds would change color, turning pink, like this:

We still have some time left, but this city stresses me out way too much, and we decide to hop on the first bus back to Pompeii, not before buying something to snack on the way.

The next day, we take a train from Pompeii to Rome.