Morning in Naples

The very brief time I spent in Naples was rather painful, physically, albeit for a silly reason. Having walked too much the previous day, I aggravated a foot injury and spent the train ride there in agony, and the funicolare up to the small place we'd be spending our night in bent over a shaking leg. What people may have thought at the sight, I don't know (how strange it must have been), but I still remember the colour of my sandals as they bounced up and down off the floor.

When I looked out the window at Mount Vesuvius the next morning, over the still-rising city, this was not the memory I wanted to stay with me, but any inspiration could I felt from the view was instantly tempered by my hobbled walk back to bed. No, we'd prefer to remember the sound of a million people waking up, or the warmth of the sun beaming its first rays over the ocean, but sometimes the most positive memories are the hollowest, belying the realities of the journeys we take, of their hardships and less savoury moments that ultimately give them their colour. In the end, this view from upland Naples was beautiful, but it was not one achieved without consequence, and the pain of it is perhaps what made it worth remembering.