Heading South

Last Friday, I headed down to Southern Italy. The atmosphere of the south is very different from the north... everything seems louder, brighter; more chaotic... the clocks run slower and more erratically. The people are aggressive, demonstrative, hospitible. Suddenly, you know you are in the Mediterranian. Almost as soon as I got off the train in Naples, I felt like I was in a completely different country from Bologna.

I took a regional train, the “Circumvesuviana” heading to Pompeii from Naples. The final destination was Salerno. It was so crowded I could barely move, and hot. About half the people on board were tourists, the other half locals. The train rattled and shook like it was about to fall apart. Everyone was shouting and gesturing while trying to stay on their feet. I tried to be inconspicuous, glad I didn’t have a heavy backpack.

A local man and his family were shouting at a couple from the Midwest USA... I had met them earlier. He was saying something about not being able to get to Salerno on this train. A couple of the other locals on the train joined in on the conversation, seemingly discussing the plight of the two Americans, as much as I could make out. However, none of the tourists on the train spoke enough Italian, and none of the locals spoke enough English, so communication between the two factions was impossible. The American couple asked me what was going on... I shrugged: "People here have strongly-held views," I offered, unhelpfully.

Later, after getting off, I heard that there might or might not have been a strike that kept the train from stopping at Salerno. I made it to Pompeii ok, however, I never did find out how the couple made out.