Pilgrimage to Capaccio
Each of my days in Naples contained a little pilgrimage. I made an art pilgrimage to the Museo di Capodimonte which sits on a hill overlooking the city, to see the Caravaggios. I joined an Australian chef that I befriended on a food pilgrimage to the bustling seafood market, where the goods are so fresh that the vendors are often still wearing their fishing boots. The Circumvesuviana train took me around Mount Vesuvius for a day trip to Pompeii.
As I walked among the ruins, I realized that pictures in history textbooks hadn’t added up to a real place in my mind, and I was suddenly struck by the fact that I never thought I would actually ever get to see this sight. I decided that on this particular stay in the south of Italy, I would make the pilgrimage to another place that seemed to exist only in my imagination—Nana’s hometown of Capaccio.
Right then, I sat down on one of Pompeii’s dusty ancient roads, next to one of the many resident stray dogs site living off the kindness of stranger’s bag lunches, and wrote down all the details I knew of Capaccio on scraps of paper. I always had the abstract thought of visiting Capaccio, but I hadn’t received much encouragement. My mother, aunt, and uncle had all said the same things about it. There’s nothing there! Who’s left? It’s in the middle of nowhere! Nana’s ailing memory provided few things for me to travel on. What I knew was that Capaccio lay in the mountains above the ancient temples at Paestum.
I knew that on the road leading up to the town was a statue dedicated to the Madonna del Granato, erected by my great-grandfather Giuseppe Scariati, in thanks for being spared in a dangerous carriage accident. I knew the name of the town church was la Chiesa del Rosario. The last link I had was a phone number and an address for my great uncle named Rosario, who still kept a villa there. Though my facts were scant, I finally felt confident enough in my Italian language skills to find my way.
From Naples, I took a blue SITA bus which dropped me off in Paestum in the suddenly flatter and swampy fields two hours away. Founded by Greek colonists during the 7th century BC, the temples were once dedicated to Poseidon. I looked to the south and could just barely see the ocean on the beaches of Agropoli. During World War II, the Allies had landed on those shores as they moved inland, flushing out the Germans as they made their way to Naples. I whipped my head to look at the mountains where Capaccio lay hovering and remembered my Zia Carmelina telling me how her father had hidden her away during the war, because he was afraid that the soldiers would find his teenage daughter attractive. As I meandered around the columns and crumbling marble veins embedded in the short grass, I thought that maybe some of the ancient Greek blood that worshiped at this site still existed and was flowing in my veins today. However, the New Yorker ever present in me was in a rush to get up to Capaccio and assumed that there would naturally be an hourly bus to take me there.
I walked to the nearest souvenir stand selling miniature black and red Greek vases to inquire about a bus. I was told to wait at the croce in the road. I wasn’t sure that I had really been heard when I had asked about Capaccio, so I double-checked my source in the gelateria. I still didn’t feel that I had actually been taken seriously, but again I was told to wait for the bus at the croce. An older man dressed in a full suit decided to accompany me. He prattled on in Italian about American politics and told me all about his son who was an expert on America and Buffalo Bill. Ironic, because the croce in flat Paestum, with nothing more beyond the temples but a few sleepy shops and a handful of staring locals felt like the Old West. An hour passed without a bus. I think tumbleweed blew by when I finally asked my well-dressed friend, where was this bus to Capaccio?
“The autobus only goes to Naples. You need the Pullman,” he informed me.
“Well, what’s a Pullman?” I asked.
Suddenly he was exasperated with me. He threw his hands up in the air and said “Pullman, Pullman, Pullman!” as if the repetition would provide clarification. I asked him to describe a Pullman. Is it like a taxi? No. Is it something you have to reserve ahead of time? No. Is it a rickshaw? I could get nothing from him other than Pullman—a word that was making me cry with frustration.
Darkness was falling, my language skills were deteriorating with my fatigue, and the few shops along the roadside were shutting down. I imagined the buzzards beginning to circle. The blue SITA bus back to Naples pulled over and I picked up my backpack. The old man yelled at me, "No, questo è un autobus. Non è un Pullman!!" I was done and terrified at the idea of trying to find a place to spend the night. I boarded the bus stumped, not by an inability to communicate in Italian, but by an apparently English word.
About the Author:Danielle Oteri shares her experiences navigating Southern Italy with all of its linguistic and cultural quirks.
As I walked among the ruins, I realized that pictures in history textbooks hadn’t added up to a real place in my mind, and I was suddenly struck by the fact that I never thought I would actually ever get to see this sight. I decided that on this particular stay in the south of Italy, I would make the pilgrimage to another place that seemed to exist only in my imagination—Nana’s hometown of Capaccio.
Right then, I sat down on one of Pompeii’s dusty ancient roads, next to one of the many resident stray dogs site living off the kindness of stranger’s bag lunches, and wrote down all the details I knew of Capaccio on scraps of paper. I always had the abstract thought of visiting Capaccio, but I hadn’t received much encouragement. My mother, aunt, and uncle had all said the same things about it. There’s nothing there! Who’s left? It’s in the middle of nowhere! Nana’s ailing memory provided few things for me to travel on. What I knew was that Capaccio lay in the mountains above the ancient temples at Paestum.
I knew that on the road leading up to the town was a statue dedicated to the Madonna del Granato, erected by my great-grandfather Giuseppe Scariati, in thanks for being spared in a dangerous carriage accident. I knew the name of the town church was la Chiesa del Rosario. The last link I had was a phone number and an address for my great uncle named Rosario, who still kept a villa there. Though my facts were scant, I finally felt confident enough in my Italian language skills to find my way.
From Naples, I took a blue SITA bus which dropped me off in Paestum in the suddenly flatter and swampy fields two hours away. Founded by Greek colonists during the 7th century BC, the temples were once dedicated to Poseidon. I looked to the south and could just barely see the ocean on the beaches of Agropoli. During World War II, the Allies had landed on those shores as they moved inland, flushing out the Germans as they made their way to Naples. I whipped my head to look at the mountains where Capaccio lay hovering and remembered my Zia Carmelina telling me how her father had hidden her away during the war, because he was afraid that the soldiers would find his teenage daughter attractive. As I meandered around the columns and crumbling marble veins embedded in the short grass, I thought that maybe some of the ancient Greek blood that worshiped at this site still existed and was flowing in my veins today. However, the New Yorker ever present in me was in a rush to get up to Capaccio and assumed that there would naturally be an hourly bus to take me there.
I walked to the nearest souvenir stand selling miniature black and red Greek vases to inquire about a bus. I was told to wait at the croce in the road. I wasn’t sure that I had really been heard when I had asked about Capaccio, so I double-checked my source in the gelateria. I still didn’t feel that I had actually been taken seriously, but again I was told to wait for the bus at the croce. An older man dressed in a full suit decided to accompany me. He prattled on in Italian about American politics and told me all about his son who was an expert on America and Buffalo Bill. Ironic, because the croce in flat Paestum, with nothing more beyond the temples but a few sleepy shops and a handful of staring locals felt like the Old West. An hour passed without a bus. I think tumbleweed blew by when I finally asked my well-dressed friend, where was this bus to Capaccio?
“The autobus only goes to Naples. You need the Pullman,” he informed me.
“Well, what’s a Pullman?” I asked.
Suddenly he was exasperated with me. He threw his hands up in the air and said “Pullman, Pullman, Pullman!” as if the repetition would provide clarification. I asked him to describe a Pullman. Is it like a taxi? No. Is it something you have to reserve ahead of time? No. Is it a rickshaw? I could get nothing from him other than Pullman—a word that was making me cry with frustration.
Darkness was falling, my language skills were deteriorating with my fatigue, and the few shops along the roadside were shutting down. I imagined the buzzards beginning to circle. The blue SITA bus back to Naples pulled over and I picked up my backpack. The old man yelled at me, "No, questo è un autobus. Non è un Pullman!!" I was done and terrified at the idea of trying to find a place to spend the night. I boarded the bus stumped, not by an inability to communicate in Italian, but by an apparently English word.
About the Author:Danielle Oteri shares her experiences navigating Southern Italy with all of its linguistic and cultural quirks.
