Palestrina's amazing Nile Mosaic

The Nile Mosaic is located in the town of Palestrina, about 30 km east of Rome.  It’s one of largest (20 by 13 feet or 6 by 4 meters) and most fascinating works of art.  

The mosaic dates back to the 1^st centuries B.C. and its author remains unknown. It depicts a flooded Nilotic landscape, inhabited by animals both real and imaginary, Ptolemaic Greeks, Aethiopian hunters and priests performing rituals in their magnificent temples.   The famous Barberini family removed the mosaic and took it to Rome in the 1600s where it had been first discovered.  It was then returned to Palestrina but was damaged in the process and had to be once again restored.   During the Second World War, to avoid damage from the allied bombings, the mosaic was again removed but is now again on display in Palestrina.

See Naples and Die. But why?

The old saying goes: “See Naples and Die”.  I instead say, “But why”?  

Why would anyone want to die with SO much to see in a city that (so they say) has MORE churches than Rome, that has an amazing museum---the one at Capodimonte (with Goyas, Caravaggios, Titians, Raphaels and also Warhols), which also has other Caravaggios hidden around the town, which is engulfed by a lot of decay and chaos (the scooters and motorcycles come at you from EVERY direction, even up one way streets!) but which is all surrounded by some amazing architecture, churches and a multitude of saints, which has GREAT food, including the Brandi restaurant which (they say) gave the world its very first pizza, the Pizza Margherita, which has some rather friendly and open people (ok, perhaps not all Neapolitans are that open but at least the ones we bumped into certainly were), which is STILL to this day adorned with t-shirts, photos and murals of the “Pibe de Oro”, aka Diego Armando Maradona, one of the greatest players in the history of soccer (or football for our British friends who had a taste of his incredible skills at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico!), which only 20 minutes away by train has Herculaneum that, along with Pompeii, had been engulfed by the eruption of nearby Vesuvius in 79 AD (Vesuvius is only 25 km away from Herculaneum) and which is also not too far away by boat from everyone’s favorite island, Capri? 

So why on EARTH would anyone want to die AFTER seeing such an amazing town as Naples?  Might as well go on living to see even MORE of that intriguing and VERY vibrant city, Italy's 3rd largest, right?

Small yet impressive Herculaneum!

The splendid Capodimonte Museum!

Robert Mapplethorpe (Patti Smith's good friend), Andy Warhol and Michelangelo Pistoletto

Magnifico Caravaggio!!

  

Chaotic and (very) colourful Naples!

The greatest of them all?