Where the hotel staff welcome you with a song
by David Morris
On September 19th, 2019, I was in Napoli, Italy.
I had travelled via Roma with my sister, Jenny, and my good mate, John. We had spent the day walking the dead streets of Pompeii.
After that, we felt the need for night life and took to the cobblestones without a clue as to that date’s local importance.
A celebration of the Festival of Saint Januarius, the patron saint of Naples, was underway.
Napoli's strade e vicole were awake with crowds, Vespas and Fiats. Above our heads and across the laneways were lights, and the lights spelt out words. And the words were the lyrics to a song all Napolitani know. But not us three Aussies.
As we jumped out of the way at the sound of tooting horns and edged through the throngs, we came upon a midnight pop-up stall selling lollies. I thought a sugar hit would be just the thing and bought a bag of assorted pinks and greens, jubes and candies, sticks and the just plain sticky.
We munched and crunched and sucked our way back to our hotel, the Hotel San Pietro.
Inside stood three receptionists, smart in scarves and uniforms, and when they saw us, they gave three broad smiles.
We asked for our keys, they asked us how our evening had been.
I showed then my bag of lollies and asked what the festival was all about.
They said it was for the saint who had protected Naples from the Mt Vesuvius eruption that had buried Pompeii in 79 AD.
I showed them a photo of the illuminated street lights and asked them what the words meant.
They laughed.
When I offered to pay them with my lollies if they’d tell me, they laughed some more.
I handed them the bag and without further prompting they sang us the song ‘Napoli e’ for their patron saint. And us.
Here it is.
I miss Napoli.
My compensation is seeing the quarantined Napolitani singing from their windows and balconies. No lollies needed.
Text & photo © David Morris, 2020