Naples

So to wrap up a great trip we visited Naples and one of its big museums.. which I have completely forgotten the name of. This was definitely up there with my favorites. The theme of the museum seemed to be marble, marble, and marble. We walked past tons of these beautiful sculptures and I definitely had to sit back and just admire the commitment these artists must have had. They were super detailed and we learned about the different facial expressions and why they were made to look a certain way.

In an earlier post I mentioned how casually sex was thrown around in art.. and the bottom right picture is no exception. It was fascinating to walk through these exhibits and see what people wanted to leave behind when they no longer lived here on earth. What I would do to talk with one of these artists for just a day!

Another really cool part of this museum were the mosaics. These pieces have held up over the years and not only are they wonderfully made with intricate designs and painstakingly laid stone, but the color has held up over all these years.

To wrap up our short afternoon in Naples we took a bus to a pizza place! Naples is known for its incredible pizza and I, as an expert pizza consumer, have to agree. I have never tasted a better pizza!

It was a great way to end our 3 day, 3 stop weekend.
More to come on my weekend trip from Nice, France!

Paestum

Here comes a wild puzzle of different posts from different places. Sorry ’bout it.

After the dusty ruins of Pompeii, Paestum came as a nice vacation! We pulled up to the most picturesque, charming hotel I’ve ever seen. The rooms were carefully painted and I wish I had some pictures to show but I don’t because I suck. The hotel itself was a 5 minute walk from the beach so right after we all unpacked our things it was straight to the beach! I’m a Florida gal and where there’s a beach, I’m there. I’ve decided one of my favorite things is to visit different beaches in different places to note the similarities and differences.. one difference between a St. Pete beach in Florida and a Paestum beach in Italy is that there were maybe 10 men constantly circling back to our little group trying to sell us souvenirs. One similarity? The cloudless skies and perfect weather.

That first night we kind of all just kicked back and enjoyed our 5 euro bottles of wine and a couple of us played on the piano and sang — it was definitely a highlight of my trip. The next day we woke up and went to a museum that contained some artifacts from Pompeii’s ruins and some additional artifacts gathered from various spots. Like all museums, this place blew my mind. I never thought I would enjoy history until I visited another country that thrives on its past.

One of the more interesting things I learned about on this trip was the relationships between men and women, men and men, women and women. I know it’s incredibly naive and painfully ignorant but it rarely comes up in my mind that people 3000 years ago might have had a different approach on certain topics. And boyyyyy did those Italians have a different approach on things! So one of the things I found most incredible was the lack of taboo surrounding sex and partnership. Sex. Everyone did it, sometimes in public, and sometimes with multiple people. Sex to these guys was just a facet of life and they felt free and willing to talk about it, paint it, and sculpt it. Half of the things I looked at in both Pompeii and in Paestum was the different forms of art that demonstrated some kind of sexual significance.

This picture on the left above was probably a favorite of mine. Our tour guide explained that back in the day women were considered inferior (Surprise!) and they didn’t have much to bring to the table in terms of conversation. Men would then engage in a more intimate relationship with other men, whom they considered equals. Men were engaged in sexual and emotional relationships with other men and nobody batted an eyelash. Marriage was a partnership between men and women but not necessarily based on love — rather a mutual desire for children and well being. Past the bonds of a legal relationship, men were free to engage in intimate relationships outside of the marriage. This kind of thinking gave me a lot to chew on as I was there in Paestum. It made me laugh at our modernized idea of what “traditional marriage” looks like.

These were the ruins we visited that was a short bus ride from where we were staying! Not too much to say but that I loved being within touching distance of something so old and filled with so much history. It has been a very humbling experience that makes my 19 years on this earth look laughable in the face of thousands of years of men who have come before me.