Day 23: Naples, Caserta,Montecassino

We decided not to do the palace at Caserta and therefore, I can't tell you what kind of decadent people the Bourbon dynasty was… but I can tell you a bit about Naples .

The real ruler was the queen, with all her connections to Austria.  She was smart and strong, but she was having an affair with the king's adviser , Lord Acton.  And her best friend and advisor (Lady Hamilton) was having a menage a trois with her husband Lord Hamilton and the galant and brave Lord Nelson.  The three of them ended up living in the same house until Lord Hamilton died and she could marry Lord Nelson

In the 18^th century Naples, the  common people were poor and desperate, but so were many of the middle class merchants.  Italy had invented Lotto and much of Naples was addicted to gambling: getting numbers from mystics, priests, nuns, tarot cards.  The poor got poorer and more desperate; the king's treasury got richer.  And he needed that money to pay for hiring the brigands to supplement his army.

A teacher told me that today Naples has more people per square KM than Bombay.

So, instead of staying on in Caserta we headed north and, on the way to Rome, stopped at Montecassino.  A famous Benedictine monestary that was a german/Italian stronghold in WWII.  Although it was severely bombed, it has been rebuilt and I'm not sure which is prettier: the church, the surrounding architecture of the monestary, or the beautiful views.  It would have been nice to have heard a service where they sing Gregorian chants etc… but they were closing for siesta.  So we took a few pics.

Montecassino is especially interesting for my family because my uncle, Don Sanders, fought in Italy in WWII.  He wasn't in this particular battle, but seeing this site, and hearing about this famous battle, reminded us of him.

 My brother told me this story about the 10th Mountain Division:  They had trained specially in Colorado to fight in the mountains of Italy.  All the known ways to access the monestary were blocked by the Germans and Italians, except for one sheer cliff which no one thought was a risk.  Using mountainclimbing techniques and, I suppose, some mules, they not only climbed the mountain but carried cannons with them as well.  It is very sad what was done to the beautiful monestary in the name of peace.  On the other hand, the world needed to stop Hitler and Mussolini.

But it was inspiring to see it rebuilt with the words PAX inscribed above (peace)... and, in the cloister were two tamed white doves. 

 Then we had a Mac attack.  We had seen McDonalds (they call it McDrive) on our way in and couldn't get it out of our minds… I even remembered the words to every McDonalds jingle… (want to challenge me to McDonalds trivia?)  So we set the GPS for McDonalds, but apparently the lady in the GPS box felt uncooperative.  After a few tries we headed back to the highway.  On the way to Rome, we attempted 2 more times, but again, each time, we couldn't get there from here.  Apparently Ronald McD can buy signs on strategically places along the highway, but can't located the restaurants in easy to find places.

We arrived at the Hilton starved and had our last meal together.  Margaret and John had traditional Roman dishes….Guess what I had?  I can also proudly say that I waited until the last day to have a dessert of gelato (On my 3 prior trips to Italy, I had it at least once a day... of course it was hotter in Oct and Nov).

"Ching Ching" or maybe its "Chin Chin"... means "Cheers!"

Then I repacked for about the 4^th time and now I'm writing this on my way home.  We're over Greenland now………

Mary