7 Days, 6, Cities, 5 Countries, 4 Languages - Third Man, Second Cousin, First Time Everywhere

I blitzed Central Europe. Heading by overnight train out of Rome, we stopped for the afternoon in Venice, before continuing on to Vienna. Arriving at night, we spent the next 36 hours there before heading by bus to Prague. Two nights in Prague, and it’s on to Berlin. One night in Berlin, and it’s a van for two hours to Sczcecin, Poland. Count it up - it works.

General impressions are here, with more specifics to follow.

Rome: Rome reminded me a lot of Washington, D.C. Government and Tourism are pretty much the whole economy, and everything touristy is mainly concentrated in a small section in the middle of the city. I liked the city, and it was fun to visit, but I didn’t really feel it.

Venice: Venice is tourism - at least if you don’t have a boat and can visit the outlying islands. We couldn’t get away from it - overpriced cafes and tzotzcke shops everywhere. We did managed to find a couple of somewhat out-of-the way corners, but probably only because it was a nasty day in the off-season. I didn’t quite get the appeal of Venice, I have to say.

Vienna: We were in Vienna for one reason: to go visit the underground river that was used in Orsen Welles’ “The Third Man.” The trip was kind of fun, if simple (and full of spiders) - peep the Cave Clan tag we found in there!The third man is basically a movie about Vienna - kind of the same way that “On the Town” is a movie about New York. The only other thing of note that we did was head up the spire of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in the middle of town, where the views were awful. Probably the worst observation deck I’ve been on. I didn’t much like Vienna as a whole.

Prague: Prague is small, beautiful, cheap for Europe, and extremely touristy. I get the feeling there’s another layer of the city, probably pretty interesting, but one which foreigners will never know. Prague is not really a migrant city, and the population seems to pretty much consist of people there for a couple days and people there for life. Language is also a factor. There’s plenty of people who speak English, French, Spanish, even Portuguese and Italian as second languages. Nobody speaks Czech as a second language - not unless they marry a Czech person and move there. These two factors, at least to me, seem to indicate a city for tourists, a city for locals, and never the twain shall meet.

Berlin: I actually really liked Berlin, which I was not expecting. In fact, even though I didn’t even spend 24 contiguous hours there, I think it deserves it’s own post. More to come.

Sczcecin: Szczecin is not really on the typical European tour list. It’s not even one of those “off the beaten path” kind of cities, and visiting certainly never would have crossed my mind if I hadn’t had relatives there. Still, it was fairly interesting. A German city called Stettin until the end of WWII (today it’s right across the border, and most people visiting by air will fly into Berlin), it has Poland’s second-largest port, next to Gdansk, or Danzig. Architecture is one of three things: the old German City, Soviet era (basically concrete blocks), and post-Soviet era (basically the same concrete blocks, but sometimes with balconies, and painted purple or green). I was only there to visit my second cousin (well, first cousin twice removed, but second cousin fits in with the title better).

Hanging With the Pope

We headed out of Naples for Rome. Our stated mission was to break into the oldest sewer in the world. But there was other stuff to see along the way. You don’t go to Rome without planning some appreciation for the two great historical institutions that have had their headquarters there: the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church.

The first Catholic site I went to was St. Peter’s Basilica . In addition to being a historic, artistic, and architectural marvel, St. Peter’s actually has a remarkable amount of public access. In fact, you can see five different levels at one point. After checking out the interior, I headed up to the top.

I took the stairs the whole way. After a few hundred steps, you’re out on a balcony on the inside overlooking the alter.From there, you head out to the lower roof.

Then a few hundred more steps and you’re rewarded with great views of Rome from the viewing terrace on top of the dome, which was designed by Michelangelo as one of his last works.

he walk up itself was actually pretty fun. There’s about a dozen different types of staircases along the way, and at one point you actually have to learn about 20 degrees to the right while walking, to adjust for the slope of the dome.

The other two levels are below. Underneath the alter is the tomb of the past popes, which is publicly accessible whenever the Basilica is open. And underneath that level is a fascinating archeological site. Tours are given semi-regularly, and we were lucky enough to catch one in English.

Before there was a St. Peter’s Basilica - in fact before there was a St. Peter - the area west of the Tiber river was mainly a burial place. Underneath the Vatican is an entire “City of the Dead” - catacombs filled with Christian, Jewish, and Pagan burial sites. Over the years it’s been excavated, and now has periodic tours where you can also see the burial place of St. Peter. Our guide told us the long twisted take of discovering St. Peter’s remains - basically, since the Vatican’s nightmare was to not find St. Peter’s remains below the alter where they were supposed to be, excavation was held up for centuries. Eventually, remains were found matching the age, sex, and expiration date of the Basilica’s namesake. The final kicker that led the Vatican to declare they were St. Peter’s remains? Despite an abundance of hand and finger bones, there were no foot bones found. Legend has it that St. Peter was crucified upside-down. The easiest way to take a dead body off an upside-down cross? Chop off his feet at the ankles.

A lot of people mistakenly think that St. Peter’s Basilica is the seat of the Bishop of Rome - A.K.A. the Pope. Actually, that honor is held by St. John Lateran - or “The Cathedral Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior and Saints John Baptist and John the Evangelist in the Lateran.” Cathedral because it contains a Cathedra, or seat of a Bishop. Archbasilica because as the seat of the Pope, it’s considered above all other basilicas. Most Holy Savior because all Patriarchal Basilicas consider Jesus to be the primary patron, with whoever they are named after (Paul, Peter, the Johns, and the Virgin Mary), as secondary patrons. Saint John the Baptist and the Evanglalist because it was actually dedicated twice, and they decided to keep them both. And in the Lateran, because the location is the site of the former palace of the Laterani family.

I decided to head to St. John’s right after my visit to St. Peter’s. And after that, I decided to try and make a Grand Slam of the four Major Basilicas. I headed to St. Paul’s Outside the Walls next (which is supposedly above the burial place of St. Paul). St. Paul’s is most noteworthy for having a portrait of every Pope in history. When there’s no more room for another Pope, it signals (obviously) the end of the world. There’s eight spots left. For centuries, the Roman Catholic Church would not let any Non-Catholic Churches in the city of Rome. The name of the first one, an English language Anglican church? Why “St. Paul’s Inside the Walls” of course. I finished off the Grand Slam with a visit to St. Mary Maggiore, about a half-hour before it closed.

The next day we went to see the Vatican Museum (best known for the Sistine Chapel with the famous ceiling by Michelangelo). The scene in the Chapel is half funny, half pitiful. It’s unbelievably crowded, and despite the prominently displayed “flashbulb with a slash through it” signs, you keep hearing is the guards saying “no flash, no flash” in a resigned voice about every 10 seconds.

In addition to the Vatican Museum, we also saw the Pope. It wasn’t too tough - you head to St. Peter’s on Tuesday, the Swiss Guards give you tickets (free of charge), and you show up the next day.

The whole thing was hilarious. The Pope reads a short statement in about a dozen different languages. Then after each time he reads it, he basically gives a shout-out to whoever happens to be there that speaks that language. If a group from a church in Uruguay is visiting (which they were), he’ll say something like “and I wish to welcome the congregation of St. Mary’s from Montevideo, Uruguay” after he’s done reading the statement in Spanish, and the aforementioned congregation will stands up and cheer and wave Uruguayan flags. Repeat for everyone else that’s there. At one point, I kid you not, a Marching Band stood up and played a few songs after their organization had been given a shout-out. Then after all of that the Pope blesses everything in the room, and that’s a wrap. It’s basically the same as going to a rap concert, but instead of “Is Brooklyn in the House?” it’s “is St. Stephen’s Church of Bratislava, Slovakia in the house?” And as said by Pope Benedict XVI instead of the Method Man.

Napoli on Tour

“Indiana Jones!!! Da-Da-Da-Daaaah!!!.” The short, elderly, and extremely energetic guide was shouting this non stop while nimbly racing through the 2-foot wide ancient Greek aqueduct tunnels 100 feet underneath the city. We were the only two participants on this particular Napoli Sotterranea tour - offered Saturday mornings only, from an obscure address in the Spanish Quarter.

The Spanish Quarter itself is one of the more interesting neighborhoods in Naples. Geographically, it lies directly west of the City Center on a gently sloping hill. Its narrow and compact streets from a grid, the only part of Naples that strictly follows this pattern. Socially, it’s a densely populated working-class, yet somewhat eccentric, neighborhood. This is the neighborhood where you’re most likely to run into a 6-year old riding backward a Vespa motor scooter being driven by his 9-year-old sister, or one the femignelli, as members of Naples’ venerable Transsexual community are called.

Below the Spanish quarter is even more interesting - it’s home to an extensive network of underground aqueducts and cisterns, many of which were turned into air-raid shelters during the war, including the one we were currently touring. Tours were only in Italian - other than “Look, Look!,” and “Ooh, La, La!” two phrases our guide used every couple of minutes. Steve mostly took pictures, but I tried my best to combine the various things that were pointed out with a basic knowledge of Romance languages and the copious use of hand gestures from our guide to get a sense of the stories he was trying to tell us.

From what I gathered, the house above where we entered had been the house our guide and his brother had grown up in. During World War II, when they were children, they had hidden in the old cistern below that had been turned into an air-raid shelter. After the war, illegal dumping from construction had filled in much of the old air-raid shelters and underground network. Later on, when they were adults, they had re-entered and excavated this old air-raid shelter and the surrounding network and started giving tours.

“Illegal” dumping is actually a strong, word - again, “extralegal” is probably the best term. In a city like Naples, bureaucracy, building codes, and paperwork are basically taken as, well, one of the many different ways of doing things. And post-war building almost never followed this official way. We encountered an interesting example in our journey through one of the underground tunnels we found. From what we could tell, it was designed and meant for use exclusively as a storm drain. However, we saw small sewer pipes every once in a while flowing into the drain. During the post-war building boom, if it were easier and cheaper to just connect nearby buildings’ sewage systems to this storm drain instead of an actual sewer, no doubt a way was found to make it happen.

Among the other stories I managed to semi-understand were that of a pregnant woman giving birth on the stairs down to the air-raid shelter (who later on got in touch with him through a reporter), the damp air being used for the development of penicillin, and how the toilets were right next to the bottom of the stairs. Why? Well, if you’re in imminent danger of having a bomb level your house, what’s the first way your body might react?

All in all, it was a great tour. We emerged out of a nondescript door in a nondescript alley, with a nondescript middle-aged Italian woman staring at us. Those are the entrances to the fascinating underground world of Naples. Not manholes, not anything really even publicly accessible. They’re in people’s houses, or hidden in plain sight. In Naples, not just for the underground but really for anything, knowledge and access are gained through people, relationships, not through internet research or random poking around. While developing those relationships in one conversation is certainly not unheard of (Steve managed to talk his way into a Greek and Roman excavation site beneath a Church, for instance) they can often take lifetimes to develop, if not generations.

Luckily for us, there were a few organizations, institutions, and just quirky individuals (such as our aforementioned Indians Jones impersonator) who gave tours, or at least provided varying degrees of public access, to a good amount of the fascinating underground infrastructure of the cities. We got to see old air-raid shelters, catacombs, crypts, aqueducts, and archeological sites legally - a great deal more (and better) stuff than we got to see during our extralegal excursions. We could have seen even more if we hadn’t come during the winter, including the fascinating Fontanelle Cemetery, closed until April.

And of course we made time to take a day trip to climb Mt. Vesuvius (my first time seeing an active volcano) and explore the ruins of Pompeii as well. While there, I of course could help but engage in a tiny bit of just slightly extralegal underground exploration. One of the ancient houses had a grate in front of it. Removing this revealed a staircase that led to a small basement below. I could a quick look and headed back up - only realizing afterward that this was probably the oldest underground space I had ever been in.