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We have not seen a lot of Italy, we visited Rome and Naples so far.

There will surely be more to come!

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Thinking of our next destination: Italy and Portugal come to mind, or maybe the time has finally come for a US road trip…

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Mad about Diego

(vero;2024-Dec-04)

When walking through the city of Naples there is no way to escape him: Diego Maradona, the hero who gave the SSC Napoli its unique European cup in 1989 (UEFA) and made the heyday of the club during the second half of the 1980s when it won the Italian Serie A League twice (1986-87 and 1989-90), the 1989-90 Coppa Italia and the 1990 Supercoppa Italiana. The locals are still crazy about Diego and it shows: there are posters and frescoes of him all over the city, his face adorns the windows of many shops or street shrines.

We were puzzled by such displays of devotion and intrigued, googled for more info on this craze. That's when we discovered the existence of a parody religion called the Iglesia Maradoniana, created in Argentina in 1998 to honour the D10S (his nickname fusing his playing number 10 with the Spanish word for God, Dios). Click here to read an article about the idiosyncrasies of this cult.

Below are some examples of the Diego paraphernalia we came across in the streets of Naples:

Note the halo surrounding his head, the D10S nickname (a fusion of his jersey number 10 with the Spanish word for God, Dios) and the dates below: from 1960 to eternity.

We loved this free rendering of Diego as an Angel holding the Italian Serie A cup. Check the small poster of the woman in blue below: she is wearing a DIOS tee-shirt.

A street shrine in the district of Materdei.

Poster hanging on the facade of a house.

Front of a barber shop in the historical centre.

Wedding photo in the window of a photographer (hence the reflection of the houses opposite). It shows the happily married couple in front of a huge image of you know who. Isn't that romantic?

Diego on the facade of one of the highrises behind the central railway station.

Spritz is THE drink in Naples. Of course, the Maradona Spritz is more expensive than the others.

A blue Spritz, blue for the colour of the SSC's jerseys.

Diego and Vero (and our mascot Wusel) in front of a sport shop.

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