The Italian adventure begins...in Naples

Spending only a day and a night in the old port town of Naples gave me just the briefest of impressions. Lots of beautiful old architecture and stunningly-carved statues cheek-by-jowl with lots of graffiti, dirt, piles of rubbish (the collectors may have been on strike?), gridlocked traffic, street-trading immigrants from North Africa and destitutes. 

The Italians are a notoriously romantic nation and couples often embrace passionately and unselfconsciously in the street. But I haven't been quick or bold enough to nab any really good shots of that just yet (watch this space!) and, meantime, like these chairs set ready for a good one-to-one...

A very strange statue, in the Palazzo Reale, of a man thoroughly dead thanks to both a cleaver in the back and a dagger in the head.

 The sumptuous, soaring, breathtaking hallway of the Palazzo Reale

 and, nearby, an old man with no home but at least a nice bike & leather jacket.