On Friday, I spent the morning wandering around in Naples again while Michael was at the University.
The first thing that I saw as I began walking down Santa Lucia was a bunch of people, a few signs and some police officers……someone was demonstrating about something, so I continued on.
As I entered one particular piazza, I encountered a HUGE group of people with more signs, but these people were chanting, clapping and having a wonderful time. This was all taking place just outside of a Middle/High School. I stayed long enough to see which way they were moving and then to head the other direction….
Later in the day Michael told me that it was a strike….of all of the Middle and High School students!!!!! It looked as if they had just given themselves a three day weekend, but apparently they were protesting some major cuts in education that had just been proposed by the Prime Minister. Oh well, to each his own!!!
The destination of the day was to return to an area that I had visited on Thursday and really enjoyed. It is a series of shops that are located on Via Gregorio Armeno….
These are the people that sell wonderful nativity sets, many of which are entire TOWNS that have the manger located somewhere in the scene. The bigger ones are very expensive….I saw one 12-14 inch hand painted shepherd that cost 700 Euros. However, there were an infinite number of smaller, much cheaper versions.
You start out by purchasing a backdrop…these are a couple of smaller ones…..
Then you buy individual people, scenes etc to fill up your town….
Many of the pieces are very detailed and the nicer ones are all hand painted. In many of the shops you can see the workers in the back putting together the miscellaneous scenes…. 
This guy was painting one of the larger backdrops in one of the more expensive shops. The thing that interested me most was the “mud” paint that he was using for the first coat…..
Many of the figurines were displayed on old dirty workbenches, apparently just off of the artist’s brush and many of the shops had pots of brushes and paints sitting everywhere.
BUT, the really fun thing was seeing the small scenes that had been put into motion. The basic motion was the same on each one, but I really liked the different ways that they incorporated the simple move. Here is a video that shows some of my favorites…..
Here also is a video of a street singer….he had a gorgeous voice and I loved his “portable harp”……
There was a young girl in front of me while I was walking and all of a sudden a gush of water fell on her. As we both looked up we saw the woman on the 4th floor watering the plants on her terrace and the overflow was hitting the sidewalk!!!
As I was walking back to the hotel, I passed a small street market and really enjoyed seeing the fish markets….
…..loved the Swordfish steaks!!
Came across this “Tripperia”…..I figure that their motto is “All Tripe, All the Time”, but somehow seeing cow and sheep stomachs on the street was a bit much….
I stepped into this cheese shop and was completely overcome by the wonderful smells of ripening cheese…..
In one of the large piazzas they were setting up for a “Race for the Cure” festival and a few booths were open. As I walked around I saw two guys playing “table soccer” (not foosball). I enjoyed watching the guys flick the players with their fingers to make them kick the ball. All of the other men were standing around giving advice to the two players…..
Michael and I went back to the same restaurant for lunch and were once again given a complimentary glass of champagne. We enjoyed bruschetta as a Starter course…..
Calzone for a Second course (we split one this time)……
And we ended the meal with free icy Limon Cello….
The rest of the day was spent working on packing our suitcases and relaxing around the hotel some.