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It’s Different in Naples, Italy: The Neapolitan Playing Card Deck

Differences Between the Neapolitan and American Card Deck Did you know that in Naples, Italy people play cards with a completely different deck than we do in the USA? Unlike the American 52 card deck, southern Italians use a 40 card deck. Also, Neapolitan cards are not numbered, so you need to count how many of that particular suit are on the card. The two of swords, for instance, has two swords drawn on it, but no numbers. This type of card goes up to seven. After that, for the eight, nine and ten, there are face cards. The entire…

Venice, Italy’s Warped Sense of Scale

A recent visit to Venice, Italy got me thinking about the model train set I had as a kid, and how it taught me the meaning of scale. For those who have never played with model trains, they come in two different scale sizes: N and HO. HO is the larger of the two, with a ratio of 1:87.1, while N gauge ranges from 1:148 to 1:160. Because of this difference in scale, an HO caboose seriously dwarfs an N caboose when sitting side by side. Serious model train aficionados (i.e. adults) would never dream of mixing HO with N.…