Today was the National Archaeological Museum. Armed with our ‘Artecard 365 Lite’ (worked a treat) we started our long-delayed – eleven years! – exploration of Pompeii’s treasures. And my, well worth the wait. We knew it would take us a while to see the bits we wanted to but were there most of the day. The sculpture and the mosaics are as good as any we’ve seen anywhere – Firenze included. We have to conclude that a lucky happenstance – the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79 – preserved a very affluent, advanced and literate society. We knew it wasn’t quite so lucky for the inhabitants but the stuff that has been saved demonstrates a quite astonishing society. Of course, other Roman cities may have been just as well advanced – but we’ll never know. 

We pop down the road to book for today (Sunday evening). It’s about 15:45 and when we get to the restaurant, after walking down a decidedly edgy Via Floria, we find it packed with maybe a hundred queuing on the pavement. Inside the kitchen we glimpse a brigade* of tall-hatted chefs frantically producing delicious fish dishes in a tiny kitchen. We secure a table for later – still busy with football on big screens at either end of the restaurant, housed in a greenhouse out on the pavement.

Great cooking (fish obvs) and Napoli v Genoa in the Italian Series A league on the big TVs. Huge cheer when Napoli won, less so when Genoa equalised. Still Napoli won the league a couple of games later, so that’s alright then.

*brigade = normally a section of an army comprising 3000-5000 troops. In restaurant terms it describes the tight-knit group of chefs, sou-chefs etc working together to create high quality dishes. 

Restaurant A Figlia d’o Marenaro Napoli