Searching for Nately's Whore

I suppose we would not have gone in to Naples (and as you'll see, we didn't get far into Naples) if it hadn't been for Mr. Happiness. You'll remember him, the Rick Moranis guy. As we were pulling into the port, Mr. Happiness tells his lady friend, "You know, back in my early days of cruising, I'd have spent the next two hours in Naples."

The phrase "my early days of cruising" struck me as so funny we had to get into the town someway, somehow.

One thing about this cruise that is so different from our cruise last year is that we are in the bottom decile by age. You read that right: two fiftysomethings are younger than 90% of the people on this cruise. More than 90%. This is a 17-day cruise, in the winter, and the vast majority of the people on it are retired. A few retirees are younger than we are, but most are of more natural retirement age. The others we've seen who are gainfully employed are the sort who have seasonal jobs of some kind, and a few who, like us, had an extended time off for some reason. One family with a young child we've seen comes from Australia, where it's summer vacation. But some seem to live aboard cruise ships. One guy we met, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, or I should say "lives" in Fort Lauderdale, was really upset he was going to have to spend three weeks in his actual home before his next cruise, which will be around the world on the brand new Queen Victoria.

Anyway, we got off the bus and figured out where we'd go to get back to the ship, then headed back across the parking lot to Naples.

And nearly didn't make it at all.



This is the road leading out of the Naples port. Traffic moves fast. Scooters move in odd directions, like against traffic, or onto the sidewalk. There is a two-way trolley in between the lanes of traffic. There is a traffic light, too, but we never saw it actually turn green for traffic crossing the street. And counting both directions, we were probably there for eight minutes or so.

We finally made it across by basically walking in the slipstream of a Neapolitan. And nearly got whacked by a scooter that was heading the wrong way.

Once across, things weren't much better. This part of Naples doesn't seem to cater to tourists, but more to the maritime trade. I kept thinking about the one literary reference to Naples I knew, which is from Catch-22, where Nately (played by Art Garfunkel in the film) is in love with a prostitute in Naples, and wants to take her home to marry him, only Nately's whore realizes she has it a lot better in Italy doing tricks.

I kept wondering if she lived right here near the port.

We were looking for a grocery store, a nice place to get cappuccino, anything, but all we saw was this place, which certainly didn't exist in Rome.



And what passes for full-service gas in Naples.



On the way back, we were almost run over again, and we got separated because Marjorie wasn't as adventurous as me, but she did cross eventually. I don't think the ship would have sailed without her for lack of crossing that street, but you never know.

In the parking lot of the port, I saw a policeman who was a dead ringer for the guy who played Napoleon (and his double) in Love and Death.



"And now I teach you my walk." Napoleon, of course, means "from Naples", so who knows?

As we were entering the ship, we saw a navy vessel alongside. I took a picture because it lined up so nicely against Vesuvius. Someone said, "You're taking a picture of the Italian navy."

I begged to differ.



We got back to the ship and benched licht for the first night of Chanukah. Marjorie had bought felt in Baltimore and and had turned it into a perfect felt menorah, since we obviously can't have open flames aboard ship.



Then we went out to the worst meal I've had since, I don't know, Nick and June and we were at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite in 1982 or so and sent everything back after the waiter had the audacity to ask if everything was all right. The meal had a supposed French theme and the items were all written on the menu with their French names. So I ordered them with the names on the menu. The waiter, who was Chinese, knew only "the duck" or "the soup." Anytime Dining (TM) may be a great concept, but if they can't put real trained waiters on staff, they're in trouble.

Nonetheless, nothing the food could do could possibly ruin such a wonderfully memorable day. I don't think Marjorie or I ever thought we'd get to climb Vesuvius or see Pompeii, let alone climb it on such a beautiful day or see so much of Pompeii. All we need now is for the volcano to blow, so that what we saw has additional historical value. Not that I'd wish that on the nice people we saw. But it would be cool, wouldn't it?