Stapling Centuries

About the image: I had a stay at the Royal Continental Hotel in Naples. My room didn’t face the sea, which I initially found disappointing, but then I didn’t mind. Behind the hotel rises Pizzafalcone, which is equally wonderful to behold. On this hill, Parthenope, the first Greek city in the area, was founded several centuries before Christ. In the 16th century, wealthy Neapolitans built villas there. The impressive Rampe di Pizzafalcone, which leads in a zigzag up to the Palazzo Carafa di Santa Severina, dates from this time. You can see it at the upper right edge of the picture. The street is also called Rampe di Lamont Young, named after the British architect Lamont Young, who designed many city palaces in Naples at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Among them is Villa Ebe, a neo-Gothic castle to the left of the ramp, where Young lived and ended his life in 1929 after the city administration rejected his development plan for a modern Naples.