Christmas time



San Gregorio Armeno st.

At Acheloo travels we are very busy during these days, preparing our windows for Christmas: colored lights, an original Christmas tree and  so many offers to propose to our customers during this holiday period. This time we want to offer our readers something different, a return to our origins and lost traditions. A walk back in the past to find the colors, smells, tastes and sounds of Christmas in Naples streets beginning from the end of November.

We start our visit from the heart of Christmas market in Naples in Via San Gregorio Armeno: the historic center of the ancient Greco-Roman city, the largest historic center in Europe (1,700 hectares), listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, with 27 centuries of history, and more than 400 churches! Along this narrow street, a series of workshops expose and sell outside on the street, all kinds of shepherds, and all the accessories and objects necessary for the scene of nativity. In some shops, it is also possible to assist at artisans’ work, while assembling and painting their handmade shepherds.

At the end of the street of San Gregorio Armeno, we reach the little square in front of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, dating back 1200. Beneath San Lorenzo, about half of an original Roman market has been excavated . In this area each corner, each stone, each building tells a story: Naples underground, the ruins of the Roman theatre inserted into the walls of the buildings, the church of  "anime pezzentelle" (“poor souls”)


At lunchtime, the return to origins, brings us to the "Cantina", a sort of canteen. At the beginning of the century, in the old wineries in Naples, people could buy wine and they could spend some time sitting at a table with friends, eating something with a glass of wine. Today these sort of wineries are very few , but they are the only places where you can try popular dishes of the ancient Naples, eating in a warm and homely everyday atmosphere, in the heart of the city.

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