Naples – Italy's Beautiful Mess

If I said Naples was my favourite city in Italy, I’d be lying – but I can’t say I don’t like it either. It’s incredibly noisy, dusty, chaotic and corrupt, and at the same time authentic and beautiful in its own way. A city of contrasts. And that’s exactly where its charm lies. One of my favourite singers, Jason Mraz, has a song whose title sums Naples up perfectly – “A Beautiful Mess” (A Beautiful Mess). Italians, for their part, like to say that if Rome is the heart of Italy, Naples is its soul.

This is a city with more than two thousand years of history: a jumble of beautiful medieval buildings, jaw-dropping, lavish palaces, packed streets and narrow, often grubby pavements, all wrapped up in a heady blend of smells, tastes and sounds. And last but not least, it’s the city of delicious Italian food – above all, pizza. Naples is the birthplace of one of the most popular foods on the planet. From the moment pizza was invented and caught on, it was loved by the poorest Neapolitans and the nobility alike. To be honest, Naples is where I had one of the best pizzas of my life. I’ll tell you more about the local food further down the post.

There’s so much to see and do in Naples that it could easily rival Rome for sights, but half of them are around the city rather than in it. So if you’re planning to spend a bit longer here, you’re better off hiring a car than relying on public transport. Also bear in mind that the city can be dangerous and there are pickpockets everywhere who can relieve you of your things in seconds without you even noticing. Keep an eye on your belongings, steer clear of quiet places, especially after dark, and don’t carry cash.

When should you visit Naples?

I’ve been to Naples in both January and October, and we were incredibly lucky with the weather both times. The city is in southern Italy, where the climate brings good weather for most of the year. Even so, I’d recommend going between March and June or in September and October. That way you’ll avoid the heat and the crowds of the busy summer season, as well as the chance of rain in winter.

How do you get to Naples?

Low-cost airlines fly direct from Sofia to Naples several times a week. The flight takes under two hours, and if you do a bit of research in advance and stay flexible with your dates, you can find tickets for as little as 20–30 euros each way. Flights land at Naples airport, from where it’s easy to get to the city centre by taxi or public transport. If you’re combining your trip with other sights in the area, as we did, I’d recommend hiring a car. There are dozens of car hire companies right next to the airport, but do book your car in advance – it’ll work out much cheaper, and the paperwork will be quicker too.

What is there to see in Naples?

Castel dell’Ovo

Castel dell’Ovo, or simply Dell’Ovo, is the oldest castle in Naples, and its name literally means the Egg Castle. It was built by the Normans in the 12th century on the site of an earlier military stronghold. The quirky name comes from a legend that the Latin poet Virgil, who was thought to be a sorcerer in the Middle Ages, hid a magic egg in the castle’s dungeons. The egg was said to have an extraordinary power that held the whole fortress up. If it ever broke, the fortress would collapse and Naples would be struck by disaster and ruin on an unimaginable scale. The interior isn’t especially glamorous, but the castle is still one of the most visited sights in the city, thanks to the gorgeous views from its walls. Exhibitions and concerts are often held inside.

Piazza del Plebiscito

Piazza del Plebiscito lies in the historic heart of Naples, surrounded by what were the city’s most iconic buildings when it was laid out – the Royal Palace, the San Carlo opera house, Palazzo Salerno and the Basilica of San Francesco di Paola. Translated from Italian, the square’s name means “referendum”. It was named after the referendum held in 1860, in which the people voted for Naples to join the united Kingdom of Italy, ruled by the House of Savoy. There are no cafés or restaurants on the square where you can sit and soak up the baroque splendour around you or the hum of the city, but it’s an iconic spot and you really can’t miss it. The colonnade leading up to the entrance of the basilica is impressive, and the basilica itself looks a lot like the Pantheon in Rome. The square is a brilliant place for photos, especially on a sunny day.

The Royal Palace (Palazzo Reale)

The Royal Palace stands in the heart of Naples, on the grand Piazza del Plebiscito, and for many years it was the main residence of the Neapolitan kings of the Bourbon dynasty. Work on the lavish palace began in the 17th century, and it was remodelled and extended many times over the years. The façade only hints at the beauty inside. Today the palace is a museum, giving visitors a unique chance to wander through the former royal apartments, which have kept their original furnishings down the centuries. The rooms are adorned with works of art, marble decoration, frescoes and tapestries. You can also visit the throne room, the private theatre built especially for the royal family and the beautiful palace chapel, famous for its marble baroque altar. You can buy tickets for the palace HERE.

Teatro San Carlo

The mecca of opera for the whole of southern Italy – that’s how people describe Teatro San Carlo, built in the early 18th century. Operas are still staged here today, so if you love opera, I can promise this will be one of the most unforgettable experiences of your trip to Naples. Make sure you book in advance, because tickets are very hard to come by at the last minute – and I should point out that they’re far from cheap. You can buy tickets here.

The New Castle (Castel Nuovo)

The New Castle, close to the port and Piazza del Plebiscito, is an inseparable part of the face of modern Naples. It’s one of the most recognisable and distinctive buildings in the city. Compared with the Royal Palace, this medieval fortress, built in the 13th century, is anything but new. But when it went up, the locals called it “the New Castle” to tell it apart from the other fortresses in the city, and the name has stuck among Neapolitans to this day. Once it was finished, the seat of local power moved from Castel dell’Ovo to the New Castle, and for centuries it was the stage for many events of huge importance in Italian history. More than a couple of royals were crowned here. The castle looks far more impressive from the outside than the inside, but it’s open to visitors and you can explore it if you have some time to spare.

Naples Cathedral

Built in the 13th century, Naples Cathedral, or the Duomo, is named after the city’s patron saint, San Gennaro. It has been rebuilt and extended several times over the centuries, and the result is a fascinating blend of baroque, Renaissance and Gothic styles. The cathedral also takes in two smaller churches. On one side is the San Gennaro chapel, home to the cathedral’s most precious relic – the saint’s sacred blood. On the other is the Basilica of Santa Restituta, the oldest Christian church in Naples, richly decorated in Byzantine style. The columns inside are thought to have been brought from a ruined pagan temple of Apollo.

Castel Sant’Elmo

The medieval Castel Sant’Elmo was one of the most strategically placed fortresses in Naples, which made it a very tempting prize for conquerors over the centuries. A small church dedicated to St Erasmus once stood here. Later a palace was built on the site, which the Spanish then extended into today’s vast military complex, with a hexagonal shape that was cutting-edge for its time. These days the fortress draws plenty of tourists with its incredible panoramic views over the city, the bay and Mount Vesuvius. Over the centuries the huge, impregnable complex was used for all sorts of purposes, including as a prison, and today it houses an art museum with over 170 works – paintings, sculptures and prints by various 20th-century Neapolitan artists.

San Martino Monastery

Right next to Castel Sant’Elmo, high up on the Vomero hill, stands another of the symbols of Naples – San Martino Monastery. Once home to monks of the Carthusian order and now a museum, the fortified complex offers equally stunning views of the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius. The monks’ former living quarters now house the National Museum of San Martino, where you can see works from the 13th to the 19th centuries, including extremely valuable paintings, frescoes and sculptures. The museum also has a rich collection of carriages and boats that belonged to the kings of Naples, along with documents from different periods of the city’s history. The monastery’s large Renaissance-style church is open to visitors too, and here you can admire the incredible work of some of the greatest Italian sculptors and painters, who worked on its interior.

The National Archaeological Museum

The National Archaeological Museum of Naples is one of the richest museums in the whole of Italy, so if you love history and want to immerse yourself in the region’s past, I highly recommend a visit. The beautiful building that houses the museum dates from the 16th century and was originally used as a military base. Today it holds an exceptionally rich collection of Roman artefacts, including finds from the ancient Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, destroyed when Vesuvius erupted in the 1st century. There’s even a special exhibition devoted to erotic art from Pompeii. As you know, the Romans were a pretty uninhibited bunch and held the beauty of the naked body in high regard. The exhibits include mosaics, antiquities, statues and sculptures from ancient Rome and ancient Greece, as well as Egyptian artefacts. You can buy tickets HERE.

Galleria Umberto I

The Spanish Quarter (Quartieri Spagnoli)

Another spot in central Naples that’s well worth a visit is the Spanish Quarter, right next to some of the city’s main sights – Castel Nuovo, Piazza del Plebiscito and Castel Sant’Elmo. If you’re exploring the city on foot, you’re all but guaranteed to pass through it. Wildly colourful, vibrant and dirty, yet with an elegant charm of its own – it’s Naples through and through. This is where you can feel the spirit of the city and see Italy “without its make-up on”. Washing strung from windows and balconies, Vespa scooters parked in the narrow lanes and little huddles of neighbours sitting outside their front doors are all typical sights here. One of the main thoroughfares of Naples, built in the mid-16th century, runs through the Spanish Quarter. Today a shopping street with countless shops selling just about everything, the kilometre-plus Via Toledo is also one of the liveliest streets in the city. Shops, stalls, cafés and places to eat will keep you company all the way along, and at weekends it’s so packed you can barely squeeze past.

The Catacombs

Some visitors might find this sight a little creepy at first, and others might call it rather unusual, but it turns up on every list of the most interesting places in Naples. The catacombs of Naples are ancient underground communal tombs, used in the first centuries AD by Jews and Christians fleeing persecution by the local authorities. They’re not the only underground tombs of this kind in Italy – I know of others in Rome and in Sicily – but the Neapolitan ones are far more spacious, so you won’t feel claustrophobic.

There are two sets of catacombs in Naples – those of San Gennaro and of San Gaudioso. I highly recommend the Catacombs of San Gennaro, right next to Capodimonte Palace. These are the largest and most important catacombs in southern Italy. They’re spread over two levels and there’s more room, so you can easily get past the other visitors. You’ll also get to see restored ancient frescoes in some of the tombs of wealthier Neapolitans. This is also where you’ll find the tomb of the patron saint of Naples, who gives the catacombs their name – San Gennaro. I’d strongly recommend buying tickets in advance, which you can do directly HERE.

Capodimonte Palace

Capodimonte Palace and its gardens are among the most beautiful spots in the city and a firm favourite with tourists. Even though the palace is in central Naples, a stroll through its sprawling gardens felt wonderfully relaxing after all the noise of the city. It was built in the mid-18th century as a hunting park for King Charles III, and today it houses one of the richest art museums in Italy, with a collection of more than 47,000 works. As well as admiring pieces by the great Raphael, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Botticelli and a host of other leading Italian artists, you can also see the royal apartments of the kings of the Bourbon dynasty. I’d set aside at least two hours for the palace.

Tuck into Neapolitan food

The Royal Palace of Caserta

Not far from Naples, in the small town of Caserta, stands the palace of the same name, the Reggia di Caserta – one of the largest and most lavish palaces in the world. This grand palace was modelled on Versailles as a summer residence for the kings of Naples. Quite deservedly, Caserta Palace is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. It has five floors and 1,200 rooms, though only one floor is currently open to visitors. You can explore the royal apartments exactly as they once were, as well as the throne room, which is impressively large and finished down to the last detail. The gardens of the royal residence are every bit as impressive and grand as the palace itself – they stretch for 3 km. Caserta Palace is well worth half a day of your stay in Naples. Apart from on an organised tour, you can get there by car or train. The train takes about 45 minutes, or it’s 30 minutes if you’ve hired a car. You can buy tickets for the palace HERE.

Pompeii

Once thriving and grand, now eerie and ghostly, the ancient Roman city of Pompeii lets visitors travel more than 2,000 years back in time as they wander its original stone streets among the remains of dozens of lavish villas, temples and theatres. The city was home to nearly 11,000 people when, in AD 79, it was wiped out by a massive eruption of nearby Vesuvius – one of the greatest tragedies in history, and one that has inspired many writers and film-makers. For centuries Pompeii lay buried under volcanic ash, until local workers stumbled upon it in the 16th century while digging a canal, and two centuries later archaeological excavations began. They brought to light many well-preserved buildings, temples and Roman villas, along with hundreds of petrified bodies frozen in different poses. It was the ash that preserved the city for all those centuries, turning it into one of the most extraordinary open-air museums in the world and one of the most visited tourist sites in Europe. Among the hundreds of ancient buildings, most of them fully restored, you can also see the brothels Pompeii was famous for even in ancient times. They were the town’s main entertainment, and people came from all over the Roman Empire to visit them. Given the millions of tourists who come to Naples mainly for Pompeii, it would be a huge shame not to make it to the ancient city. Make sure you buy tickets in advance, as numbers are limited – you can do so HERE.

Vesuvius

Without a doubt, Vesuvius is one of the most famous volcanoes in the world, best known for its catastrophic eruption in AD 79, which buried the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum under ash and lava. That was just one of its many eruptions over the centuries, but probably the most powerful on record. Vesuvius is thought to be around 17,000 years old and has erupted more than 50 times in that time. The last eruption was during the Second World War, in 1944, and scientists believe that after such a long lull another one could come soon. It’s the only active volcano on mainland Europe and is considered one of the most dangerous in the world. One fact I found fascinating is that Vesuvius actually has not one but two craters – the second formed when tectonic plates shifted during one of its earlier eruptions. Today, as well as being the largest nature park in the Naples area, Vesuvius is a huge tourist draw, especially for thrill-seekers. You can hike to the top and walk along the rim of the crater, but only ever with a trained, licensed guide. If you’re lucky with the weather, you can see as far as Sorrento, Capri and the Amalfi Coast. You can buy tickets for Vesuvius directly HERE.

The island of Procida

Some 30 kilometres from the port of Naples lies the beautiful, romantic island of Procida. It may not be one of Italy’s best-known destinations, overshadowed as it is by its bigger neighbours Capri and Ischia, but I promise it deserves at least a day of your trip. Even as you approach its shores, you’ll spot the pretty, colourful houses perched on its slopes. One place you simply have to visit is Procida‘s calling card – the harbour village of Marina Corricella. As well as being the largest fishing village on the island, it’s also the oldest. If you type the island’s name into Google, most of the photos you’ll see will almost certainly be of the village’s brightly coloured houses clinging to the hillside and the imposing fortress towering over the harbour. It’s no surprise the islanders have a special relationship with seafood, since apart from tourism, fishing is their main livelihood. Stuffed squid, spaghetti with clams and fish I’d never tried before were just some of the delicacies we sampled. And we rounded it all off with an incredible lemon ice cream, the like of which I’d only ever had in Amalfi. A fun fact about Procida is that the island is famous for its lemons, which are bigger and sweeter than usual. You absolutely must try the local dessert Lingua di Bue, which literally means “ox tongue”. It’s a long, tongue-shaped pastry filled with cream and lemon and generously dusted with sugar. Click HERE to book a day trip to the island with transport and lunch included.

Sorrento

According to Greek mythology, the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea around Sorrento were home to the bewitching sirens, sea creatures whose songs lured passing ships onto the rocks, where they were wrecked and the sailors met their end. In fact, Sorrento’s ancient name was Surrentum, which means siren. Today, by a twist of fate, the cliffs the town sits on still lure visitors in – but only to enchant them with the views from their flat top, which is like one giant terrace. At first glance Sorrento isn’t as striking as Positano or Amalfi, but the town has a charm all of its own. One day is definitely enough to look around, tuck into a delicious plate of pasta with clams at one of the little local restaurants by the sea, finish the day on the beach and enjoy an incredible sunset over the Neapolitan Riviera. Plenty of visitors use the town as a base for trips to Capri or the towns of the Amalfi Coast, because prices here are much lower and it’s far less overrun with tourists. You can join an organised trip to Sorrento and Positano by signing up HERE.

The Amalfi Coast

The Amalfi Coast – for me, this is the icing on the cake, of the destinations around Naples at least. I can honestly say I fell head over heels for this part of Italy. A piece of me stayed behind in this beautiful little paradise. To really soak up the Mediterranean magic of the region, you’ll definitely need more than a day – ideally at least three. It’s one of the most famous destinations in Italy, and also one of the most expensive, even though until the early 20th century most of the towns here were run-down fishing villages. That’s when the locals decided to develop tourism, and today visitors flock here from all over the world. The summer season gets very busy, so if you want to experience the real atmosphere, my advice is to plan your trip before or after the summer months. There are quite a few towns along the Amalfi Coast, but the main ones you should visit are Positano, Amalfi, Ravello and the island of Capri. So that we could enjoy the gorgeous views and see all the interesting places, I decided to devote our whole trip to Amalfi, and we drove there in a hire car. That said, plenty of tourists combine the Amalfi Coast with a visit to Naples and Pompeii. It all depends on how much time you have. You can read my post on the 10 most beautiful towns on the Amalfi Coast and decide for yourself which ones to visit.