The beautiful lady with dirty feet.

The beautiful lady with dirty feet, is what the military calls Naples, Italy.  I was fascinated with the stories I heard but put it down as exagerration since all the places I had been were almost as clean as Germany.  Certainly cleaner then some of our big cities.  We had been through Naples several times on the autobahn and while some places had litter, I hadn't seen anything extreme.  My grandson Chris had arrived for Christmas vacation so we decided to tour Naples one day.  Boy was I in for a shock!!  Some of the side streets we drove down you could hardly get through.  I had been told the people were very angry about this so I was hesitant to let anyone see me taking pictures.  I got this first picture from the internet but I saw many places just like this.

  Horrible isn't it?!!

We parked and walked through some of the town center and some of this was spoiled by all the sidewalk vendors.

   A pretty church overlooking part of the town.

   Driving into the town.  The guys in the road were trying to sell things to the cars.

   Everyone hangs their wash out every single day.

   The egg castle.

     The island of Ischia across the bay.

    Naples circles this area of the bay with the most population of Italy.

  We stopped here to take pictures but the parking wasn't long enough so we had to find another longer parking spot.

     Castle dell' Ovo,  the egg castle.  Built in the 13th century it's said a magician hid an egg in an urn and hid it in a secret room.  Legend says if anyone ever finds it Naples will be destroyed.

   A memorial arch.  We didn't stop but went on to find a parking spot.

We parked close to a bus and train station and started walking.  There were some nice stores and buildings but I was I was disappointed to see the streets cluttered with sidewalk venders.

When the man walking ahead of us stopped all of a sudden and went after something in the garbag, I didn't feel the least bit bad about taking his picture.  Yuck!!!

  He was dressed nice enough and didn't look like someone that needed to pick up garbage.

   From this open area we saw an archway into a side street that seemed to be busy so we headed that way.

   It seemed to be a pretty poor area but a few steps showed us it was a fish market.

     EEls.

   There were lots of these huge beautiful doors.

    A sightseeing bus passed us and we hoped they saw better sights then we were seeing.

   Mid afternoon and we were starving.  We found this neat little restaurant and were relieved to sit down for awhile. 

       Kelli and Chris ordered pizzas.

   I ordered Gnocchi again.  Love it!

   After our meal and resting awhile we decided to call it a day.  The walk back to the car took us past the castle Maschio Angioino, better known as Castle Nuovo, the new castle.  Built in 1279 it only took 3 years of slave labor to complete.  The entrance fee was more then we cared to spend so we headed home.

  This is a very beautiful city as long as you keep looking up.  I do hope they get this problem solved soon.  Now I understand why they call her the beautiful lady with dirty feet.