Naples Local Customs

Like all Italian cities, Naples is crazy about football. Old Cliffie has been in the massive concrete bowl of the San Paolo stadium with 90 000 fans as SSC Napoli played host to rival clubs from northern Italy. But don't talk football to Neapolitans nowadays. Napoli finished a disastrous season in Italy's top division by being relegated to the ignominy of Serie B for the 2001-02 season. Gone are the glory days of the second half of the 1980s, when Diego Maradona helped Napoli to two national championships and the prestigious UEFA Cup.

Neapolitan songs are famous around the world. They can be happy and boisterous, like 'Funiculi, funicula' (written to celebrate the first funicular railway in the city), or sad and evocative, like 'Turna a Surriento', or proud and nostalgic, like the most famous of them all, 'O sole mio'. Old Cliffie went to a concert by the Red Army Choir in the San Carlo theatre. After a programme of sombre Russian melodies and rousing cossack tunes, they encored with a medley of Neapolitan songs. The audience loved it and nearly brought the house down, thus almost achieving what no earthquake or volcano had ever managed in the three centuries' history of San Carlo.

The Naples Cathedral is devoted to San Genaro who was tortured in the year 305. The Chapel of San Genaro contains his head inside a silver bust and also two littles bottles with his cloted blood. Three times per year his blood liquidizes at the Duomo in front of lots of Naples citizens. If it doesn't it is believed that there will be some disasters in the city that year. The devouts of San Genaro crowds the Duomo and they pray, cry and get excited when San Genaro's blood finally becomes a liquid once again.

For Easter, one of Naples's specialties is casatiello: a ringshaped salty cake with salami inside and whole eggs on the top. It looks very attractive and decorative.

Napoli is the home of the pizza, all authentic pizzas should be made with bufallo mozzarella, well kneaded dough and baked in a stone oven. Try one and taste the difference.

When driving in Naples, don't think your car won't be damaged by other vehicles. You will be very lucky leaving Naples with an undamaged car.

Some people may say that the area south of Rome is already considered Africa. Napoli is part of Italy and part of the European Union!

Remember the two things you can't change in life:
1) your mother
2) your soccer team!