Thursday Nov 15. Naples.

We started today with a much more upscale experience at the Municipal Thermal Baths in Ischia. Very relaxing! Interesting that significantly more of the clients were men than women. We rather snarkily remarked that a gym session might do them more good…

Then a ferry ride back to Naples and a long visit to the Duomo. In the crypt are the bones of San Gennaro. This is the same saint who lent his name to the catacombs we visited on Saturday the 11th in Naples.

San Gennaro lived in the third century. He was Bishop of Benevento, a town I will probably walk to in a week or so. When he heard that a friend and fellow Christian had been arrested and faced death, he went to Pozzuoli to plead his friend’s case. Given that the Emperor of that time and his administration in Pozzuoli were all adamantly anti-Christian, this was very dangerous, and Gennaro was arrested and condemned to death. Medieval chroniclers relate that he was condemned to be torn apart by lions (or bears, depending on which chronicler you prefer), but the animals knelt before him as he blessed them. So he was beheaded instead (in 305 AD).

Apparently it was the custom to collect some of the blood of the deceased, and the Duomo of Naples has a vial of San Gennaro’s blood. Three times a year the vial is taken out of its container and, in ceremony, is handled by a bishop. Sometimes it liquifies during the ceremony, and this is taken as a most auspicious sign.

San Gennaro is the patron saint of Naples and the city’s protector. For example, in 1631 Vesuvius was starting to erupt. San Gennaro’s relics were processed through town and the lava flow stopped just outside the walls of Naples.

San Gennaro’s relics are housed in a beautiful 16th century Renaissance marble chapel under the high altar of the Duomo. The patron who funded this chapel is shown praying before the altar under which the saint’s bones are kept in an ancient and simple Longobard clay jar, in complete contrast to the extremely lavish cathedral.

A final walk through Naples had us once again enjoying the scruffy, lively streets and appreciating the fresh produce at the market stalls and many tiny food stores. We leave here knowing there is much more to see and do. Another time!

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September 5

I landed at Heathrow this morning at 6 am, a very inconvenient time to get a room and rest! But my student residence accommodation includes a common room with handy couches for a short snooze. The neighbourhood abuts on Regent’s Park, complete with gorgeous flowerbeds. The Queen Mary’s rose garden in Regent’s Park. My neighbourhood wandering took me to the Wallace House which used to be one of the homes of the marquesses of Hertford. The Hertfords were fabulously rich, mainly from extensive land holdings, and in the 18th and 19th centuries avid art collectors. They obviously had Trumpian home decorating tastes. Here are two of their many clocks, all of which need frequent ‘fine tuning’, it appears. I particularly liked two 18th c British paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds in their collection: Mrs Carnac and the hauntingly strange Strawberry Girl.

Sat Oct 4. London.

19 days walking on pilgrimage paths for a total of 395 km or 245 miles on foot (not that arduous - an average of 20.7 km per day, and lots of ‘rest days’ staying put in one place). All of that undone in 1.5 hours on a Eurostar train. I’m not entirely sure what conclusion I’m drawing from that comparison, but I’m back where I started, in London. On my way to my lodgings (I’m staying in a Buddhist retreat centre) I decided to visit the first visitable place to cross my path, which turned out to be the Foundling Museum. Horrified by the sight of infants being abandoned on 18th c London streets, a prosperous seaman, Thomas Coram, spent 17 years raising awareness and funds, as well as obtaining royal permission to build London’s first children’s charity. Opened in 1739, the Foundling Hospital continued its work until the 1950s, and actually is still active as a non-institutional resource, under a different name. Here is a photo of it in 1935. So many similarities to ...

Saturday September 6

I have given myself today and tomorrow in London before starting the walk. A good thing because I’m having technical difficulties getting on to the AirB&B site that I need to access for my Monday night accommodation… Today I had a lovely walk to Canary Wharf along quiet streets bordering the Thames. The tide was high and the water a bit agitated, but the sun was warm and the strollers happy. Over 25,000 bombs fell on this area of London in WWII as the Germans fully recognised the importance of maritime trade to British resilience. Some warehouses have survived (or been rebuilt) and the extensive blocks of post-war flats are very attractive (and very very expensive.) I had a pleasant break in a sixteenth century pub, the ‘Prospect of Whitby’, where Charles Dickens would come to listen to dock folk - original flagstone floors and a pewter counter on the bar. From the waterfront balcony patrons in earlier days could watch as pirates and smugglers were hung from a gibb...

Celia Walks

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