Hi @alfromswarm! Great post and thanks for alerting me to it! I once passed through Naples briefly while traveling in Italy, and also felt it to be quite testosterone-fueled though I put it down to it being a port town - you know what sailors are like!
Taking a cab ride was interesting/terrifying as their main roads seemed to have three lanes - one for each direction and a third for overtaking in both directions. Hence each time our taxi driver overtook another car he's be accelerating into oncoming traffic and trying to find a gap, while drivers coming the other way did the same. It was like a joust or a game of 'chicken'.
Great photos of Pompeii, I sadly never had time to visit so these are fascinating to look at, and very interesting to note how the macho behavior has filtered into the local culture! Looking forward to more posts from you!
Hi surrealist. Glad you liked my post. Man! I had forgotten about the cab rides lol! Indeed, taking a cab there can be a bit frightening. In the end, I ended up walking most of the time: that's why the heat wasn't so pleasant.
I think the macho culture didn't only spread locally there from the Roman Empire but pretty much from many sources and to the whole western world. Moreover, that good old Roman Empire set a large part of the tone of culture to the whole western world then and now!
Anyway, thanks for the encouragements.