In Naples they have a saying about traffic lights. Green, of course, means drive on. A yellow light means accelerate. And in Naples, the
signifying
color of traffic stops the world over provokes a unique reaction. To a Neapolitan, a red light hardly ever says stop. Instead, red says clamp your
foot
on the gas pedal and barrel through the intersection, swerving and honking your horn with abandon.
A Naples street during rush hour proves the second law of thermodynamics; order dissolves quickly into entropy. Standing stunned on a Naples'
street
corner you are amazed that such tiny cars make such great noise, but the smaller the machine, the louder the sonic trail. A Fiat emits a surly growl as
it careens through the noontime traffic, but the Vespa buzz is almost deafening. Office men, their coattails flapping, bounce between the crooked lines
of cars like deranged pinballs. A policeman in a rumpled navy uniform directs the air with his gloved hands. The choking smell of exhaust rises with a
cloud of grime and the clanging din of hurried people.
You could live this scene throughout Italy, but in Naples it's somehow different. The city is notorious in the north for its grit, corruption
and
clamor. Once-opulent buildings are bombed-out and crumbling. A wide range of criminals, from the lowly pickpockets to the dons of the Camorra, are
said
to own the streets. And the disastrous free-form traffic alone can send you screaming for a quaint Tuscan hill town.
If you're on foot, the throbbing knot of cars and scooters can keep you glued to one side of the street. But learning to love Naples means
plunging
into the noise. There are a few tried and true ways a pedestrian can survive the motorized chaos of a Naples intersection. If you like to dare death
and grave injury you can make like a Vespa and dart head on into the oncoming traffic. Unlike in the United States, where pedestrian right-of-way is a
dashed hope, in Italy, motorists grudgingly respect people on foot.
But if you aren't brazen enough to charge into traffic there are still craftier ways to cross the street. Find a venerable old Neapolitan, with
stuffed shopping bag and cane, and shadow their slow crossing. Tires are more likely to screech to a halt for a respected elder. And if the signora
you follow has made it this far without being flattened by a bus she must know something about navigating the chaos.
Braving the chaos of the Naples streets grants you a tough pride. You begin to feel closer to the people who need the streets to survive. Full
time
jobs are scarce, and many Neapolitans earn their lire selling contraband cigarettes, glittery lighters or plastic shower shoes. Despite this lowly
work, you get the feeling that most people feel there's a way to scramble to the top, to pull themselves up on the cross-hatched laundry lines to the
top
of a beautiful old building for a view of the bay and Vesuvius. To live in a city like Naples, dogged by problems and held down by the disapproval of
Italy's wealthy north, you need hope like this in spades.
Naples patron saint, San Gennaro, is an homage to faith and dreaming. Three times a year, a vial of the saint's dried blood magically turns to
liquid. Frenzied crowds turn out to cheer the blessed, mysterious event and to bask in the sign that a saint still watches over their crowded, broken
city. It's the same faith in miracles that keeps people barreling through the red lights, honking and praying.
This article was written by staff writer Rachel Young. | | |
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