Naples Travel Guide

Naples is located between the world's most famous volcano and the deep blue sea, is beautiful and ugly in same measure. It can be an intimidating place, anarchic and occasionally law-abiding. The traffic is severe and the peace and the quiet is hard to find. But it's an extraordinarily vivacious city, the food (especially pizza) is great, opera, classical music and jazz are ingrained in its culture and the treasure trove of sights hidden away here is at times overwhelming.

The city, the volcanos and its surroundings are also geographically blessed, the ever-present giant of Vesuvius bears down on the city, with the fruitful hills of the Sorrento Peninsula plunging to the well-endowed Amalfi Coast on one side and the ornamental beads of Capri, Ischia and Procida out to sea on the other, you’re never far away from captivating scenery. Towns and villages cling to cliffs or cluster around harbours in true picture- postcard style and views are colourful and panoramically spectacular. And if it’s history you’re after, the once-buried wonders of Pompeii and Herculaneum to the east are only slightly more amazing than the ruined marvels of the Campi Flegrei to the west, while to the south, crumbling Paestum is the most majestic of them all.

Naples has a lot of history to get over before it can feel properly at ease with itself. It possess a strong but also confused sense of civic pride and tradition: its dialect betrays its mixed parentage, particularly its Spanish and French influences. For hundreds of years it was tossed from one set of rulers to another, and still has a profound anti-establishment feeling, and a distrust of outsiders.

Contrasted to other European cities, Naples is an ample, chaotic and sometimes "overbearing" city, but in all these things lies the city's charm. It has its share of petty crime, and derelict areas that visually detract a tourist's point of view. In spite of this, most of Naples' inhabitants know how to enjoy the joys of life. Naples has been compared to Marseilles and referred to as the "Bombay" of Europe. This reputation should not deter potential travellers from visiting Naples, as it is safer than most large American cities and the chaos has been steadily subsiding over the last few years.