Napoli in B&W

Napoli is a city rich with colorful street scenes and vibrant characters. However, the city shines just as much when you view photos in Black and White.

Napoli's Golden Boy

Making nearly 200 appearances in a golden era for Serie A side Napoli, Diego Maradona was affectionately named "El Pibe del Oro" or "The Golden Boy" and it's not hard to see why. With 81 goals for the Italian giants, garnering two titles and a Coppa Italia, Maradona shone with Partenopei, becoming one of the greatest players in the club's history. It was in Naples that Maradona’s status as a footballing deity, at least as far as the inhabitants of this gritty southern Italian city were concerned, was confirmed.

Nowhere was Maradona's hypnotic talent and personality more adored than in Naples helping the unfancied club to usurp Milan and Juventus. It really was a match made in heaven, the diminutive street urchin from the wrong side of the tracks in partnership with a dramatic, chaotic city in southern Italy that felt undervalued and looked down upon from the great cultural cities further north, of Rome, Turin and Milan.

"Napoli non e Italia" (Napoli is not Italy), Maradona used to say. He felt right at home in a city where wealth, poverty, violence and football all co-existed on a daily basis.

He might have partied hard and with the wrong people, but the good memories are stronger and here Diego Armando Maradona will forever take his seat next to God under the "cielo azzurro" of Napoli.

It took Napoli mayor only 24 hours after Maradona's death to rename the San Paolo's football stadium in his honour: Diego Armando Maradona stadium.

Forza Napoli SEMPRE!

Curva B, in infamous fan club area of the stadium turned into an improvised Christmas shrine.

This mural dating from 1990 by Argentine artist Francisco Bosoletti has turned into a shrine since his death on Nov 25th, 2020.

The adoration is plastered across the city.... literally!

Little does it matter that Maradona played for Napoli over 30 years ago... he is still omnipresent...

... in every nook and cranny of this city...

... where even Japanese Napoli fans welcome!

This mural by street artist tvboy lasted only a few days back in 2018.

Souvenirs, souvenirs!!!

Christmas spirit

"May you never be too grown up to search the skies on Christmas Eve."

Best X-mas gift this year. 

A Swiss touch in the kitchen

X-mas table decorations: simple, traditional and festive

We cannot go without the Italian Panettone 

Busy baking with Expat Girl

In remembrance of Nonna... struffoli fatti in casa!

Babà au rhum à la napolitaine.

The most Neapolitan of them all: Ad10s Diego!

Today is a sad day in our household. With a Neapolitan husband and an Argentinean son football comes close to religion. Expat boy's hero - for good and for worse - has taken his last dribble and left many soccer fans across the globe feeling like having lost a father, a brother, or a friend. 

In Napoli Maradona had risen to God-like status during his 7-year stay. The infatuation is difficult to explain as the people's love for him is deeply visceral and moves through generations. 

Maradona was presented to the world media as a Napoli player on 5 July 1984, where he was welcomed by 75,000 fans at the Stadio San Paolo which at the time was an unprecedented welcoming ceremony. A local newspaper stated that "despite the lack of a mayor, houses, schools, buses, employment and sanitation, none of this matters because we have Maradona".

Maradona played for Napoli at a period when north–south tensions in Italy were at a peak due to a variety of issues, notably the economic differences between the two. Led by Maradona, Napoli won their first ever Italian Championship in 1986–87. He won the Scudetto (league title) for this city not once but twice. 

Murals of Maradona were painted on the city's ancient buildings, and newborn children were named in his honour. He had restored the pride in being Neapolitan, in being Southern-Italian! His were indelible years in the memory of all Neapolitans. He had worked himself into the hearts and the history of this city. A symbol of a coveted redemption and a desired resurrection.

It has been said by many that he represents the synthesis between genius and recklessness. The Argentine was ungovernable and governor at the same time, in football and in life. His weaknesses and his errors (notably off the soccer field) are equal to his immense greatness to cancel themselves in the myth. 

His most famous goal remains the one scored against England during the 1986 FIFA World cup. "A little with his head, and a little with the hand of God" as the champion said himself: "Ahora sí puedo contar lo que en aquel momento no podía, lo que en aquel momento definí como «La mano de Dios»... Qué mano de Dios, ¡fue la mano del Diego!". 

Grazie per averci fatto sognare. Grazie Diego!

Napule è mille culure

Even after 25 years, Napoli is not a city that makes feel at home, despite the wonderful warm welcome of my family in law. I cannot get my head around the city’s layout and rarely have the chance to explore the streets in a way I would need to become familiar with the place also known as the “City of Five Hundred Domes”. 

My main excuse for being hesitant in adapting to this forest of religious buildings is that whenever we visit we spend most of our time around the table with la famiglia napoletana.... eating. It is a feast every single time. Aperitivo, primo piatto, secondo piatto, frutta e dolce. By the time lunch has ended my brother-in-law is in full preparations for the dinner aperitivo! When we finally venture outside, it is time to drive back to the airport!

Napoli is a vibrant city. Napoli is chaotic, it is polluted and it is loud but its beauty is detectable in the people, in the nooks and crannies of the old cobbled streets, in the motorbikes swerving around the sheets hanging down from the balconies to dry, in the ancient churches which are a part of life just as are the coffee bars or the fashion boutiques offering t-shirts at 4 Euros a piece or the street vendors selling Napoli football gadgets.

Napoli is a photographer’s dream. It doesn’t matter where you turn your head in this city, every stone, every angle and every step can tell a whole story.

The contrast of colours, of light and shadows, of old and new, of depth and height, of hidden and exposed, of traditional and modern, of friendly and hostile, of sea and earth, of food and drinks, and of exuberant and timid can be captured in pictures. Everywhere emotions are being laid bare and stories told without necessary understanding the language or the background.

A click and the moment has been captured reflecting emotions that leave interpretations open to each observer ... because unmistakably there is ALWAYS a story behind the scene and it is visible even to the most unobservant. 

Napoli is a thousand cultures, Napoli is a thousand flavours, and one day I will conquer them all. 

Napoli in black & white