A walk around the most famous market in the world
Christmas is coming and it will be soon given green light to Christmas shopping. Every single street in Italy gets filled by flashy lights and colours. The windows of the shops get decorated to catch client's eyes, markets are held in most of the cities, where you can purchase typical products and, most of all, presents and almost everything concerning Christmas.You can not miss a day trip to Naples, and its Via San Gregorio Armeno, which its endless shops dedicated to Christmas Nativity cribs' tradition are famous all around the world.This street and its shops can be visited in every month of the year: the tourist has indeed the possibility to enjoy Christmas magical atmosphere in every moment. Most of these workshops are always open and keep their handicraft products shown, though in a smaller quantity than what you can see during Christmas time. The good point of visiting this place in other months of the year is that you can undisturbed observe craftsmen working, which is something very hard to do by the Days of Advent, during which the streets of the district are constantly crowded by visitors.San Gregorio Armeno represents one tradition: for each family in Naples, Christmas means also stopping by this charming street, an obligatory stage that has to be accomplished before building one's own Nativity crib at home.Here it is possible to find excellent artisans creating, showing and selling little statues representing every character of Christmas classic tradition. Nothing but masterpieces born by skills passed down through generations of artisans families. In particular, in this street you can find any sort of item suitable for a Nativity Scene: from little or big houses made in cork or cardboard, to mechanical items activated by electric energy like windmills, waterfalls, and also hand painted shepherds created with terracotta, and 30 cm tall statues dressed with detailed hand-woven clothes.
No character of the Nativity crib is excluded: from the Holy Family (including the ox and the donkey) to Magi, without forgetting the numerous minor roles of the workers completing the scene: shepherds, fruit sellers, fishmongers, butchers, watersellers and even pizza maker pushing the dough inside the oven. However, the main feature of Naples typical Nativity is that of being a perfect fusion between the sacred and the profane, because it doesn't only involve the statues of the Holy Family, Magi, the shepherds of each dimension, shape and price, but it is not rare to see parodies of famous characters of both the present and the past. Getting part of this niche of Napolitan Nativity crib, has become a very desirable goal by showmen, politicians, and sportsmen. Those funny figures embody the essence of Naples people typical humor and creativity. These new partakers of the Nativity, inspired by daily life are growing more and more in importance, to an extent by which they came to be the most popular attraction of Via San Gregorio Armeno's stands.
Some craftsmen are specialized in realizing these "original" shepherds: as soon as a famous person becomes the object of a gossip, his face will be used for a new statue in which, most of the cases, some elements linked to the event that brought him fame are deliberately represented in a exaggerated, hilarious way. Between these statues, it worths to remember Maradona's figure with a soccer ball, created by the years in which Napoli team was at the apex of its success, or even the candidates at the presidential elections of the United States. Naples Nativity cribs are not a mare tradition, but something that follows the flow and trends of the time. It is like a little world that is constantly fueled by the handicraft of new and young craftsmen making modern a centuries-old art.
Where?
Via San Gregorio Armeno stands perpendicular at the conjunction point between the two main roads, the so-called "documanus", which are respectively the Major (Via dei Tribunali) and the Minor (Via San Biagio dei Librai). Starting from Via Duomo, you can reach Via San Gregorio by walking through one of these two roads. If you mean to go there by metro, the easiest way is to get off at Dante Square station (Line 1) and walk toward Porta Alba. At the end of the street, Via San Sebastiano will lead you to Via Benedetto Croce. By Santa Chiara Church's steeple, it is only needed to walk along the opposite direction to Gesù Nuovo Square.
How much?
By the workshops in Via San Gregorio Armeno it is possible to purchase any kind of items needed for building a Nativity crib or just expanding one's own. However, for those interested in already-made cribs and wish to decorate it afterwards with shepherds, it is possible to do it spending an amount of money that goes from 35 to 45€ for the simplest, though very neat, models. The prices go from a minimum of 30/40€ for a 5 cm tall shepherd, to over a thousand of euros for very big statues reproducing Eighteenth Century's classic shepherds.
