The biggest city in Southern Italy is not unique, despite so many guides to Naples describing it as so. In many respects, Naples has just as much pretence and aspiration, and as many layers of emperor’s new clothes as other European hubs.
What is different about Naples is that there is simply no other city in Western Europe that gives less of a damn about what you think of it. From the partially rejuvenated former inner city slum of La Sanita to the crumbling dockside to the rococo opera houses to the sensational street food to the anarchic traffic. Naples does what it does and it expects you to keep up with it from the moment you land.
It’s not a city for the faint-hearted and it wouldn’t ever want to be. But for all the chaos, let Naples work on you for two days and you’ll come out the other side energised, cultured, and firmly addicted to what this fast-paced, low tolerance, high-beauty, decorative jumble of a city puts on its inevitably olive oil smeared plate for you.
Is two days enough for Naples?
Be warned: Naples is a big city and you will delight your walking app with how many footsteps you will take over 48 hours. Unlike so many historic European cities which have a postcard-sized centre and a sprawl of somnambulant suburbs, Naples has attractions worth visiting that stretch right out into its vast outer neighbourhoods and across its central area. This, in itself, is vertiginous, confusing and riddled with alleyways, side lanes and pavements which are used for waste disposal rather than for walking on.
So, if you only have 48 hours, it’s best to stick to the area around Royal Naples, Centro Storico and upscale Chiaia, with perhaps the odd dip into La Sanita and finally, the dockside area for one very special restaurant experience (more on that below).
Uber doesn’t exist in Naples and metered cabs are pricey. The city does have an excellent underground metro system which is very easy to navigate. But to experience the true vibe of Naples, buy some sturdy walking shoes, and be prepared to be brave when crossing the roads (cars will stop, not because they care about your life, but because they don’t want their bonnet to get dented any more than it already is) and be reassured that you can reach most of the more central sites within a 30-minute walk of any city centre hotel.
The painting of the The Seven Works of Mercy (Sette opere di misericordia), by Michelangelo Merisi known as CaravaggioGetty Images
What are the best things to do in Naples?
Eat the greatest pizza on the face of the earth
If you want to devour the most sensational margherita in Italy (or anywhere else for that matter) then you’re going to have to wait for it. The miniscule L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele has been housed on the scruffy, utterly non-descript Via Cesare Sersale since 1870.
