This place never fails to impress. Some of these are my pictures and some were taken by my friend. It was a hot, hot day in August!

Sorbillo pizzeria. It doesn’t get much better than this anywhere anytime! The pizza at L’antica Pizzeria da Michele is also first rate!

Neapolitans want you to know that there is no place for pineapple on pizza!

Then there is the Neapolitan street food and especially fried pizza! First you form the pizza…

Then you fill it…

Then you fry it!

Thanks to Putin.

The Louvre’s Pyramid Goes Dark Early as Museums Across Europe Ramp Up Plans to Cut Energy Costs

Our guide took us here for some typical pastries.

The pies above are an Easter and Christmas speciality.

The cecci above are a carnivale treat.

Here are some other pastries I found in Naples earlier in the week:

Then he took us for a coffee at Caffe Moreno, which serves the black, thick, delicious liquid in these cups kept hot in a steaming water bath.

You can find out more here: https://caffemoreno.it/en/storia/

In Cafe Moreno, there are multiple shrines to the famous soccer player, Diego Maradona. They even have some of his hair in a plastic display case

I met my tour guide in Piazza Bellini and he began to reveal the incredible history of the historic center to me and my group of travelers from Israel and the UK.

The sign below says: Piazza Bellini and the Greek walls

The Royal Conservatory of Music was founded by Napoleon when he also suppressed underused convents (the Italians call monasteries convents). He thought the buildings were beautiful and not used to advantage and gave some of them as homes to new institutions.

No matter how rough the exterior of the conservatory is, the interior courtyard is lovely and well cared for.

My guide told us that there are 416 churches in the center of Naples! Below is the interior of one of them. I fail here as an art historian: I have no idea of the name of the church!

One of the highlights of the tour for me was the walk down this street which felt more like a Moroccan bazaar than an Italian street. This is the famous street where so many of the artisans who make the famous Neapolitan creche scenes are located.

I purchased a few figures for my growing creche composed of parts from Provence, Arezzo and now Naples. Of course, I am never home for Christmas, so who knows when I will put it together!

Below, a random scene.

I had a houseguest in August and it was too hot in Denver so we ran away to Aspen to beat the heat. Unfortunately, the heat was also in Aspen.

Still, it was Aspen, always a delightful place to visit, especially for me, in the summertime. Why do the mountain towns of Colorado have such great flowers and gardens, when down in Denver we struggle to grow a colorful garden? No blue larkspur blossoms are ever found in the mile high city, alas.

Below, you can enjoy the flowers without experiencing the heat:

The faraglioni are stacks of a coastal and oceanic rock formation eroded by waves. The word may be derived from the Greek pháros or Latin pharus (“lighthouse”) and is cognate with the Spanish farallón.