Just a break in Naples

"One may write or paint as much as one likes, but this place, the shore, the Gulf, Vesuvius, the citadels, the villas, everything defies description" Italian Journey, J. W. Goethe

Easter Time and 3 months ago I planned to visit Naples... in Italy it's said "See Naples and then die!" and I agree: it's so beautiful, so particular, so fascinating...

I get off the train on Friday morning and it's sunny... I leave all the bags in the B&B and run out for a first sightseeing of the city. I'm very close to the hystorical centre and so I start crossing it through
Via dei Tribunali: a long street on which several gothic, Renaissance and Baroque churches appear and that ends in front of Castel Capuano, the headquarter of justice;
Spaccanapoli: so called because it is said to divide the town in two different parts;
Via Toledo: full of shops and important administrative buildings, very close to the "Quartieri Spagnoli" - the very pictoreque part of the city
San Gregorio Armeno: one of the most ancient street where artesans are still working at producing hand made figurines for the Nativity scenes and not only...there is also something more contemporaneus!!!
It's lunch time and I'm attracted by a lot of people in the mid of the street... I go to find out more and decide that I must taste my first Pizza, the original Italian pizza. I give my name at the waitress but I must wait for 2 hours before hearing my name pronounced.
Sorbillo, is not a fast food, it's one of the best place where you can taste pizza in Naples but there are too many people waiting for a seat that after 2 minutes you have ordered your pizza, you are served it!!!
But, up to now, I have not yet seen the volcano.... so I decide to go on wandering, passing in front of Teatro San Carlo, entering the Galleria Umberto and coming out on Piazza del Plebiscito. From there I walk along the coasts and here it is: the Vesuvio.

Today it's not cloudy and so it's possible to admire it very well and very close to us.
Walking along the coasts you can find:
Maschio Angioino: the most important civil Angevin and aragonense factory of the town;
Castel dell'Ovo: whose name is conveyed by the shape of the island and by the legend of an enchanted egg left here by Virgilius, is a sort of fortress, an ancient town closed in by defensive walls.

I would like to catch the underground to go back to the B&B but I prefer walking and finding out more of the city that, up to now, has fascinated me so much.
Naples is so strange because it consists of two different parts: the oldest one that is the most typical and the most modern, that is much more elegant.
but, not to say, ...the one I prefer is, of course, the eldest one, it's the true soul of the city.

One of the typical dish of Easter time is the

CASATIELLO

INGREDIENTS:

For the dough:

1kg 00 flour + something more for rolling the dough;

120g margarine because you cannot find sugna so easily (I was told by my hostess "don't use sugna if you don't know where it comes from");

1 cube fresh yeast;

350ml warm water;

10g salt;

pepper;

2 teaspoon sugar.

For the filling:

40g grated parmesan cheese;

100g pecorino;

100g provolone;

100g ham or speck;

1 boiled egg.

Pour the flour in a bowl together with the yeast, the pepper, the margarine. Melt salt in the warm water and pour it in the bowl and mix everything together until you get a smooth and homogeneous mixture. Put in a bowl that you have previously greased with margarine.

Leave it rest in the oven, where you have put a cup of boiled water so that the temperature inside is a little bit warmer, for at least 2 hours.

When it will have become the double, sprinkle flour on the pastry and roll out the dough in a long shape.

Pour on it parmesan cheese, dices of pecorino and provola, ham, and dices of a boiled egg.

Close the dough and put it in the cooking pan, that you have previously greased with margarine and let it rest in the oven for 2 hours.

It will have been leavened when you will cook it for 40 minutes at 180°.

Enjoy it and Happy Easter!