Overview to Naples: Travel Guide and Tourist Information
- Naples Information
- Eating & drinking in Naples
- Night life in Naples
- Getting around in Naples
- Things to do in Naples
- Where to stay in Naples
- Naples street map
The largest city in southern Italy, Naples is a rough diamond; scruffy, noisy and uniquely vibrant. Naples also doesn’t have any of the refinement (nor the airs and graces) of its northern counterparts - it is what it is, and it’s totally unapologetic about it.
The old core of the city (the ‘centro storico’) is, undoubtedly, one of the very liveliest quarters - not just in Italy but all of Europe. The crowded streets that run chaotically from Via Toledo (in the west) to the Plaza Garibaldi (to the east) demonstrate their North African roots.
The historic center’s two main arteries are the Via San Biagio dei Librari and the Via dei Tribunali. The nearby quarter of Forcella, on the other hand, (bordered to the south by Corso Umberto I) contains the city’s vibrant open-air market.
And Naples is by no means all squalid commotion. The entire city is a World Heritage Site and dotted in amongst the crooked streets are a wealth of top museums, galleries and stunning architecture, particularly in the Spaccanapoli and Quartieri Spagnoli areas.
Sightseeing wise, Il Duomo is probably the best place to start, set back off the Via Duomo in the Forcella. This 13th century cathedral - now a striking Gothic affair - still contains the ruins of Christianity's first basilica which was damaged in a huge earthquake in 1349.
But there are countless other handsome remnants of the past littering the city’s streets. Of these, the ancient Castel dell’Ovo holding fast against the waves on the seafront and the glorious Cathedral of St Januarius, rising up proudly at the heart of the city, stand out.
And the city is also studded with more mundane (but no less beautiful) features, especially some stunning fountains. Situated on the seafront, the 17th century marble Fontana dell'Immacolatella and La Fontana di Monteoliveto are both exceptional.
Away from the center, the areas of Sanita (to the north) and, a little further afield, the swanky Chiaia, are more relaxed and less seedy than the Old Town. Languorously spread out along the gorgeous Bay of Naples, the Mergellina holds the attractive Parco Virgiliano.
There is, of course, one place that’s truly unmissable – Pompeii. The eerily fascinating ruined streets of Pompeii, swallowed up by Vesuvius’ eruption long ago, are just 20 miles south of the city and are worth every second of the train journey to get there.
Whichever way you approach it from, Naples is a deceptively attractive place. It may not always immediately win travelers over but, given time, with both a truly Italian feel and yet something utterly distinct, it defiantly barges its way into their affections.