The Naples Riviera by Herbert M Vaughan

The Riviera of Naples by Herbert M Vaughan is a travel book published in 1908. I read it recently while on a trip to Naples. When using old guides in contemporary travel, it may happen that the traveler finds that a must-see site has been demolished in the intervening years, but today a cursory review via a search engine can avoid such embarrassment. But what can be gleaned from reading what are now historical travel accounts is a sense of perspective that is almost always lacking in much of the travel literature. Yes, the historical fact is always available, but its interpretation is always variable, and it is this variability that immediately enriches a travel experience.

Vaughan describes Naples, Amalfi, Sorrento, Capri, Ischia, and the nearby bays as seen in the early 20th century. His account indicates that these descriptions were contemporary, but also that they were not experienced for the first time. This is clearly an experienced traveler. It is interesting to note that he regularly notices that certain areas have become overcrowded with foreigners, or that they have been regularly filled with tourists, or that they are more likely to serve a Sunday lunch in English than any local specialty. Perhaps the barefooted luggage carriers who are usually women who apparently queue near the ferry in the hope of making a living carrying tourists’ suitcases up the hill on their heads are gone. Perhaps traditional dances have also disappeared, such as the tarantella, which Vaughan claims locals practice spontaneously at any time of day and almost anywhere.

A surprising observation arises at the beginning of the text, when the author points out that the city of Naples, itself, has been largely rebuilt and therefore contains predominantly modern buildings. The author immediately reveals his preference for a particular period in the city’s history, a preference that despises the baroque modernization of Gothic spaces, perhaps even questioning whether the Renaissance ever descended to Mannerism.

There is a slight surprise when the author lists the number of places in the Campania region where malaria is still endemic or endemic until shortly before the account was written. Vaughan then looks at the possible causes of the disease. A modern reader, when faced with the apparent contradictions of contemporary customs, may be mildly surprised. When faced with the author’s disbelief at the idea of ​​malaria being spread by mosquitoes, one approaches a state of amazement. But the modern search engine may get back to work to remind the contemporary traveler that it was less than a decade before the writing of Vaughan’s book that the causal link was confirmed. You live and you learn.

Sitting in the narrow and sometimes hectic crowded matrix of the Spanish neighborhood near Via Toledo, the contemporary commuter is often faced with the harsh noise and the smell of unburned two-strokes as motorcycles speed past on what appeared to be journeys. collision. with each other and with pedestrians alike. Cyclists, largely helmetless, recall the fact that Naples was a lucrative market for diagonal striped jerseys when seatbelts were made mandatory in cars. One is also willing to speculate what Vaughan’s experience on the streets might have been without the noise of the internal combustion engine and the smell of unburned fuel. Vaughan, of course, reminds us that before the two wheels there were four legs and that these modes of transport used to leave different evidence of their passage, which also had an effect on the nose.

When Vaughan visits Pompeii and Herculaneum, his descriptions are lyrical and vivid. But again the contemporary traveler realizes that the experience of these places in the early 20th century was significantly much less than it is now, as much of the excavation and archeology work has been done in the middle century. Anyone who, like Vaughan, wants to contemplate what life could have been like in these ancient Roman cities with their individual room shops and narrow streets, only needs to stop for a while in Naples Old Town or the Spanish Quarter, where, in addition to motorcycles, life probably looks a lot like what could have been along those old streets. From a distance, the city even looks red and yellow, the same colors that decorated most of the dwellings in the two ruined cities.

Vaughan’s description of the Naples Riviera seems surprisingly modern. It confirms that whenever and wherever we travel, what matters is the experience, the here and now, and crucially how that changes us, rather than confirming what we expected or anticipated when we decided to go there. In an age when we are told that the travel experience can be purchased as a package, it is interesting and instructive to travel through the eyes of another, both refreshing and enlightening to share another visitor’s vision of a different time while We explore a new, any new travel experience.