Luxurious Capri offers upscale splendour and natural beauty to Naples day trippers

Where do you go on holiday when you are filthy rich? When you already have every earthly desire, can do anything you want, and money is no concern? 

If you were a Roman emperor, the answer was often Capri. And though in the age of jet travel many more exotic islands are in contention, Capri has held its appeal to the rich and famous for more than 2000 years. Fortunately, if you’re in Naples and have €56 to splash out on a hydrofoil ticket, you can get a slice of the high life for the day. 

Capri is only four square miles, with two towns, two harbours (the second one is tiny), and an eye-pleasing amount of land still given over to nature. This is, doubtless, because much of the island is jutting limestone mountains better suited to goats than human habitation. Where there is space for housing, many of the fancy villas are surrounded by lush gardens and even more humble homes tend to have space for olive and lemon trees. The whole place is a vision of glorious, bold colours: the intense blue of the always-present sea, the abundant greens of trees and vegetation, the slashes of white rock, the garish cascades of pink bougainvillea, the yellow pinpricks of lemons. There are about 13,000 residents here, a majority of those in the business of serving the tourists who often more than double the locals’ numbers. That traffic has traditionally been seasonal, with dense crowds in the summer and many businesses closing over the winter. Our late-April timing seemed perfect: everything was open and primed for the season, but there weren’t too many people around yet … especially when we got out of Capri town. 

You’ll be pitched a group tour around the island when you’re on the boat, which may be a good option depending on what you want .. but isn’t essential to experience the island. Capri town is easily accessible from the dock by funicular or an uphill hike. (I suspect a fit, vigorous type could walk it in half an hour or less.) There are bus routes crossing the island, and you can pick up boat tours in the harbour. Because there were four of us, hiring one of the island’s private taxis made sense. These have a stolid body a bit like a London taxi that can fit four to six in back, but are open topped. 

We found it a glorious way to take in the sights and sounds of the island. Yes … sounds. If you don’t get out of Capri town you’ll think of it as a place crowded with noisy humanity, but a few minutes’ drive takes you into hills silent but for the wind, birdsong and the wash of the surf below.

An hour’s hire took us up the slopes of Monte Capello, from which there are stunning views across the bay of Naples towards Vesuvius and the city, then into Anacapri town. While there are hotels, restaurants and plenty of tourist shops up here, this is also where more of the locals live. Anacapri is where I’d be looking if I were to spend the night. Then we went on to the southwestern tip of the island to take a look at the Punta Carena lighthouse; the island here feels much more like a nature reserve than a holiday resort. We doubled back on ourselves and then descended to Marina Piccola, the little port that is on the other side of the island from the big one where we landed.

Calling this a marina is a bit of a stretch of the imagination. It’s a tiny bay with a part-shingle, part-sand crescent of beach, with two other beach areas framed by rock outcrops off to one side. You need to climb the equivalent of about three stories of stairs, past a little chapel and old fisherman’s cottages now given over to shops and tour operators, to get to the water. Any more than 20 people on these side beaches and 40 on the main one would feel crowded, but when we visited it was quiet. The sea was calm, the colours Caribbean, the views of the island towering above us impressive. I could have had spent the whole day here happily had I had time and proper beach shoes. (On arrival I realised I’d been here as a 12-year-old and had the shock, after a life thus far of spending all my summers in Florida, of discovering that there were beaches comprised of something other than sand. Possibly the reason I was less impressed then than I am all these decades later.) But lingering is not on the agenda for the day-tripper.

The biggest aquatic attraction here is the Blue Lagoon, a cave with a big, domed roof only accessible by boat, at low tide on calm days, through a gap in the cliffs. Its most distinctive feature is the vibrant, almost neon turquoise that the water inside the cave glows when it’s bright and sunny outside. I went in as a child and it is extraordinary. But if you want to do this, you need to check on tours at the harbour as soon as you arrive, and that would take up a big chunk of any day trip. You can’t book in advance as it’s impossible to predict if conditions will be good enough to get into the cave.

From our slightly less spectacular encounter with the gulf of Naples, our trusty driver Franco then took us back into Capri town. He’d been a wellspring of knowledge about the island and life on it, very much a guide as well as a driver. He dropped us at the highest point of town into which you can get cars and gave us restaurant tips for places the locals would consider top quality. That’s how we ended up at La Capannina, which I wrote about in my last story.

After a very long, very leisurely lunch with some very good wines, we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping and wandering aimlessly.

Capri is not a place for bargains, but it scores high on distinctive, hand-crafted items. There’s a lot of beautiful pottery, including the tradition of bells … going back to a story of a lost shepherd being saved by the sound of one … made into wind chimes. Given that the place pulls in the wealthy, there are a lot of jewellery stores, and if I were going to buy any of the locally crafted red coral I certainly saw finer examples and more interesting work here than back in Naples. There are several places you can get sandals custom-made for you in a wide variety of styles while you wait; something I haven’t seen since I splurged on two pairs in Taormina, Sicily. The prices seemed a lot higher than I remember paying, but that was a decade ago as well as a different town. Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of small boutiques selling “resort wear”: upscale, elegantly casual stuff that screams class even if you’re just hanging on the beach. The girls were particularly taken with Lagrua, the shop of a local designer who makes all her own stuff on the island. Lots of deconstructed linens pairing contrasting patterns. Most was casual wear that could also make the transition into all but the most formal offices.

I, however, was saved from temptation as I’d already wandered off the main shopping street to explore the back lanes of Capri town. Within a few steps you forget the luxury beach resort and find the peace of quiet, winding paths that have probably been here since the Middle Ages. Venerable stone houses hem you in on either side, with frequent gaps in walls to allow peeks into lovely little gardens. For such a busy place, the quiet was impressive. Except for when I stumbled onto the local primary school as the students noisily tumbled out to their parents.

We’d been warned that the queues for the funicular can back up, so we left Capri town for the harbour below well over an hour before our scheduled boat. There is, naturally, a long esplanade full of shops and bars along the waterside to take advantage of the tourist traffic.

There’s no doubt that Capri is expensive. Lunch here was our priciest meal of the trip. The €20 limoncello spritzes we enjoyed harbourside compete with London’s poshest bar bills. Other than the wind chimes I didn’t resist, all the shops were well out of my price range … and the chimes were probably a foolish splurge. But I suspect there is a less expensive Capri experience, living closer to the locals, that I’d be happy to explore on another visit. Anacapri looked charming and we didn’t get near those imperial villas. The ruins are supposed to be quite impressive. I’ve heard about a cooking school up in the hills. Looks like I have yet another item for my bucket list.

Beyond pizza: Extraordinary seafood and vegetables make Neapolitan food special

You could easily spend an entire holiday in Naples eating nothing but pizza, pastries, and street food and still come home raving about the quality of the food. This, however, is a city that delivers on every culinary level, and its proper restaurants deserve some attention, too. Especially if you love fresh produce and seafood. 

Like the rest of Italy, Neapolitan food favours simple preparations of top quality ingredients. plenty of pasta, which you can have the traditional way as a starter before your meat, or as a main course. Vegetables tend to come as side dishes, not assembled onto a main course plate with multiple elements. Neapolitans join their fellow Italians in preferring what’s local, and seasonal.

Like most Italians, they’ll tell you that THEIR local ingredients are better than other regions … and here they may have a point. Abundant sunshine, gentle breezes and the notoriously fecund volcanic soil produce exquisite fruit and vegetables. Stop to admire a greengrocer’s stand here and you’ll be gazing at something just as worthy of veneration as the city’s art. They grow varieties distinctive to the area, San Marzano tomatoes being the most well known. We were visiting in high season for friarelli (known as broccoli rabe in the States), a green somewhere between tender-stem broccoli and cavolo nero, and some gorgeous, red-tinged artichokes I’d never seen before. All this fabulous fruit and veg doesn’t mean, however, that you’ll always be eating healthily. The Neapolitans are so fond of deep frying things you’d think they were twinned with Glasgow.

This is also the point on the Italian peninsula where people start to get really serious about desserts. Omnipresent Italian gelato and tiramisu has competition here from mouth-watering cakes, pastries, tarts, and biscuits. We can thank medieval Arab occupation for the love of pastry, and centuries under Spanish rule for easy access to sugar and chocolate coming in from the new world.

In fact, many argue that the magnificence of Southern Italian food is a direct consequence of thousands of years of imperialist foreigners running the place, going all the way back to Greek merchants and then to Romans established the whole coast as a destination for luxury dining.

When it came to booking restaurants in modern Naples, we had a secret weapon named Nicola. A colleague of one of the girls on our trip, he was excited to arrange bookings for us at a series of restaurants over the course of our visit so that we could try all aspects of Neapolitan dining: the pizzerias (already covered here), the trendy spots, the humble local joints and the elegant retreats. I doubt you’ll get a bad meal anywhere in Naples, but Nicola ensured that we saw all sides of this vibrant city’s food scene. My only regret? Large portions and travelling companions who were all avoiding desserts meant I left sweets unexplored at our restaurant choices.

It was the humble neighbourhood restaurant that stole my heart, and it’s the first one I’d return to. Locanda Monacone is deep inside Rione Sanità, the former rough neighbourhood now rehabilitated into a popular residential area for creative types. It’s the destination for visitors who want a more local experience. The restaurant is proud to be a long-standing occupant of the neighbourhood; contributing to its revival with local employment. Its small, ground-floor dining room is dominated by a tile mural of Catholic saints under a barrel vault. It looks like it’s been unchanged for centuries.

Our expectations were low when we arrived, however, because that charming space was taken by a private party and we were ushered to a tiny landing upstairs with three tables outside of the kitchen. We feared the staff would ignore us and we’d be wildly irritated by the noises below and the traffic of servers from the kitchen. Not at all! The staff seemed to redouble their efforts, really making a fuss over us. By the end of the evening we were dancing with them and the downstairs party-goers to the birthday boy’s live band. And the food! Weeks later, I’m still dreaming about the plate of fritto misto (a range of deep-fried delights) followed by linguini with fresh artichokes and chunks of sweet, crispy pancetta that practically brought tears of joy to my eyes. There was an exceptional local wine list and the waiters here seemed better informed about, and more willing to discuss, options than the servers at most of the more expensive places we went. I hope that somewhere in my family history there’s a link between my line and Benito Ferrara, whose label served up a wonderfully crisp, lively Greco du Tufo to perfectly counter that rich food. 

Our most elegant experience was at TransAtlantico, a hotel and restaurant nestled beneath the Castel dell’Ovo with harbour-side tables looking over yachts and the Naples seafront with Vesuvius hanging in the background. The decor is all inspired by trans-Atlantic liners of the ‘20s and ‘30s, so there’s a lovely atmosphere inside. But for most of the year you’ll want to reserve one of those outside tables. This is the kind of place designed for that romantic dream date, but it’s pretty darned good with your girlfriends, too.

As appropriate to its location, TransAtlantico is all about the seafood. Prawns in tomato sauce, tuna tartare and a dish of lemon-laced courgettes all won raves, but I’m confident my octopus on a bed of caponata was the dish of the night. Each component part … octopus, aubergine, onion, tomato … seemed the exemplar of its individual taste, yet married together for a coherent whole. If there was one dish the whole trip that made me sigh “you just don’t get fresh tomatoes like this anywhere else” it was this one. (Top photo)

It’s here that I also got to try a white wine I’ve been reading about for years: lacryma christi. If you love both wine and history, it’s hard to resist the idea that this is as close to the wine preferred by the Ancient Romans as you can get, and that it’s been praised in literature for centuries by writers as diverse as Voltaire, Hawthorne and Marlow. I wasn’t disappointed. It’s a rich, heavy white … along the same lines as a well-aged Burgundian Chardonnay … but has a distinctive flavour profile of grass, white peach and a hint of almond. I was planning to bring some bottles home but the wine shop in Rione Sanità was closed on our departure day.

If you want to feel part of the hip and trendy scene in Naples, head to Cap’Alice. Like TransAtlantico, thisis in the upscale part of town along the coast, west of the historic centre. But where TransAtlantico’s position on the water looking toward all the great 19th century hotels speaks of a history of grand tourism, this place is on a small lane that rises through the Chiaia neighbourhood and screams “local”. You wouldn’t find without looking for it.

The food and wine was good, the people watching better. The fried calamari we shared as a starter was excellent. My tuna crusted in almonds was beautiful, but the report back on the other mains was competent, not exceptional. The wine list was interesting and the bottles we sampled were top-notch, but given that the place is known as a wine bar we were disappointed not to get more insight and guidance from the staf. Overall, service was really stretched and I suspect we did not get the best from the place because it was Friday night. The compensation was watching a parade of well-dressed locals demonstrating the Neapolitan exuberance for life. I’m not sure this was worth the effort to go all the way across town, but if I were staying in this neighbourhood I would try Cap’Alice again, on a weeknight, as well as sampling other places on this bustling little lane.

For dining with beautiful foreigners, of course, it was off to Capri. We enjoyed a long, relaxing lunch at Capanna in the main town, one of those understated but classic stalwarts plastered with photos of all the famous people who have eaten there. The interior is a cool, elegant mix of white walls, painted tiles, and potted plants, with tropical-themed plates hand-painted for the restaurant. Temperatures were mild when we visited but I can imagine what a refugee this would be from the blazing heat of high summer.

La Capannina is on a quiet lane a bit back from the main tourist drag; out taxi driver had tipped it to us when we asked him for food the locals really rated, then validated by the fact that one of the girls had an excellent meal ere on an earlier trip. It’s no bargain … at €71 each it was our most expensive meals on our trip … but that’s Capri. And our love of good wine means we’re inevitably spending as much on drinks as food.

For the premium price you get gracefully attentive service, an elegantly peaceful environment and glorious food. Their specialty of bufala mozzarella-stuffed ravioli earned eye rolls of appreciation around the table. The girls thought the Loggia della Sera Greco di Tufo was the best example of this local variety that we drank. I, however, was most impressed by a spaghetti dish with prawns in a lemon sauce. According to the waitress, the secret is lemoncello kneaded into the pasta. The flavour profile was so impressive I tried to make it as soon as I got home. My pasta was pretty good, but my sauce came nowhere near the light creaminess of theirs. The dish was memorable enough that I’ll keep trying. Perfecting the recipe is more likely than a quick return to Capri.

Honorable mentions:

Caffetteria Tonya: While I wouldn’t go out of my way to get here … I am sure there are thousands of places like this across Naples … Tonya was a great example of the neighbourhood Italian cafe. This is also why breakfast is so often optional in Italian lodging. Culturally, people prefer having their coffee and cornetto (the Italian version of a croissant) in public. I went here every morning, often sitting for an hour reading or sketching with my coffee. By the third day the two guys who worked there knew my order (cappuccino, cornetto filled with crema di pistacchio). It was fascinating to see the regular parade of locals, and how the barman took trays of coffee up and down the street for other shopkeepers. No paper cups here: proper glass and china even though he was crossing uneven paving stones and dodging speeding scooters. The guys knew the names not just of the locals, but of their dogs. Every day we saw these pillars of the community open up at 8am and roll up the shutters around 8pm. 

Tesoreria: This exquisite cocktail bar in the Galleria Principe di Napoli is worth a special trip, so beautiful are its interiors and so skilled its bartenders. The restaurant in its atmospheric, groin-vaulted cellars looked intriguing and I would have loved to try it, but all of our dining opportunities were booked up. Here’s yet another excuse to consider a return trip to Naples.

Head to Naples to see the original Christmas village concept, and be amazed by centuries of artistic skill

Every travel documentary or article about Naples makes its obligatory stop at the street of the nativity scene makers, and so would I. But here’s the fresh observation I’ll bring to the topic: stop thinking of them as nativity scenes and imagine instead the sprawling holiday toy towns so beloved of Americans. Because the grand Neapolitan presepe is actually much closer in spirit to a Department 56 Dickens Christmas Village than it is to the humble crèche set many families nestle beneath their trees.

Legend says St. Francis created the first model of the infant Jesus in his manger, accompanied by parents, animals, shepherds and visiting kings, way back in 1223 to give people a tangible reminder of what Christmas was all about. Even then, serious folk were worried it was becoming too much of a secularised party, ignoring the real point of the holiday. The tradition of the crèche steamed along quite nicely across Europe for five hundred years until a strange brew of circumstances in Naples triggered an explosion down a new path.

The Bourbon Kings, Charles and then his son Ferdinand IV, were keen to put their newly-created kingdom of Naples on the map. It had been spun off and consolidated from Spanish territories with their junior branch of the Spanish royal family dropped in to run things. (Thanks to the vagaries of 18th century health and life expectancy, Charles would eventually swim back upstream and take over as king of Spain.) The family knew that great art attracted attention; Naples was already the zenith of “the grand tour” so beloved by European gentlemen seeking to complete their education. The royals were making a huge deal out of the excavations around Vesuvius, as I wrote about earlier.

The city’s hyperbolic church scene kept an army of talented craftsmen employed creating religious figures. The royal family loved the tradition of the Christmas crèche. Why not expand it, setting the nativity stable in a broader scene of 18th century street life, creating yet another grand artistic statement for the city. This one, however, would have easily portable elements so all those grand tourists could buy copies to take home, fuelling yet another revenue line for the city.

So serious were the Bourbons that they drafted in the best artists in the city for the royal Christmas village. Giuseppe Sanmartino and Francesco Celebrano stepped aside from their work on the Sansevero Chapel (a sightseeing blockbuster I’ve written about here) to fashion figurines out of wire, wood, terracotta and cloth for the royal display. Head to the Museo di Capodimonte to see it and you’ll understand that this isn’t just a bit of holiday decor. This is a masterpiece. This is why it makes perfect sense that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York lays out an enormous Neapolitan presepe each Christmas.

Another magnificent example from this original age of presepe-making is in its own dedicated room off the Cloister of Santa Chiara. (Top photo.)

If you have an enormous amount of money, and significant space for a holiday display, you can still buy a traditional presepe with craftsmanship on par with the 18th century. The centre of this ongoing artistic community is a narrow street in the centre of the historic district called the Via San Gregorio Armeno, but you’ll pass tiny workshops where people are moulding clay body parts and working on other bits in many other streets nearby. The main show, however, is on that short lane running between Spaccanapoli … the main shopping thoroughfare that splits the historic district … and the towering, newly-cleaned bulk of San Paolo Maggiore.

Turn into the small yard just opposite where the tiny lane called the Vico Santa Luciella comes into the Via San Gregorio Armeno and you’ll see what I mean. Capuano is one of many workshops along this street that remain in family ownership, and the current brothers in charge can boast that they’ve supplied the presepe currently on display in the royal palace in Madrid. Here you’ll see city and countryside modelled at multiple scales with cork, wood, and plaster to form multi-level stage sets ready for their exquisite actors.

This is not, however, where the average tourists buy their souvenirs. That happens in the street outside. It’s full of small shops, many of them no more than 20 feet wide, all hawking their individual takes on the Christmas village. Over the past century the Italian tradition has evolved in a curious direction, with people adding modern characters to their home scenes. So the street is swarming with interpretations of Donald Trump, Elton John, Beyoncé, a host of European politicians and enough footballers to assemble your own fantasy team under the tree. Every shop has its own version of Maradona, from figures in straight athletic kit to an angel’s wings to … perplexingly … playing footfall while wearing a bishop’s mitre. That suggests a whole new kind of header.

Perhaps surprisingly, and sadly from the perspective of the shopping list I’d taken on this trip, what you won’t find here are many Catholic saints. I have no interest in updating the ancestral Ferrara nativity set with modern celebrity, but I thought it would be fun to add a group of my favourite saints on either side of the crib, as patrons once did in Medieval nativity scene paintings. My quartet were going to be: St. Anthony, the Ferrara family’s favourite; St. Francis, founder of the crèche tradition and friend to animals; Saint Madeline Sophie, benefactress of my school; and St. Agatha, patron saint of breast cancer. It was not to be. I found Francis. On the religious front, I could have come home with Padre Pio, Papal Saint John Paul II and a generic fat, jolly friar. And that’s about it. Clearly, the workshops are going for quick sales and religion is no longer raking in the cash.

There is a wide range of workmanship here, from exquisite hand-crafting to clumsy and cheap. While everyone insists their production is local, at the low-price end of the market there’s a lot of stuff that looks mass produced and wouldn’t surprise me if it was imported from cheaper manufacturing nations. If you’re going to bother buying in Naples, invest in the craftsmanship rather than the tourist tat. It’s there, in between the junk, you just have to look carefully. A traditional, high-quality figurine will cost you between €40 and €60 for the standard home crèche size of 10cm to 13 cm. The variance in price comes with the details of the clothing and accessories, how much you’re buying, and whether you’re paying cash. It’s standard practice in Italy to have a lower price if digital trails are not involved. While you won’t find a lot of flexibility on price when you’re just buying one thing, if you’re going to take home multiple items there’s often room to negotiate.

Look for three things to ensure that you’re getting hand-crafted, top-quality work.

One: Evidence of production in the shop
The absence of a workbench doesn’t automatically equate to “made in China”. Plenty of these shops are too small to make things on site; glimpses of workshops in surrounding streets attest to the fact that presepe are still locally made, then brought to the Via San Gregorio Armeno to sell. But if there’s a production area in the shop it does tell you they’re eager to show off the process and will often be happy to talk to you about it. If you can find someone working, they’re used to people watching and you’ll find their work fascinating. One obvious difference from my first trip here 20 years ago is the huge surge in the proficiency of English amongst the people who work along this street. The makers are happy when visitors take a real interest; it doesn’t take much to get them opening drawers, showing off collections of arms, legs, heads and fabric, and explaining how they assemble them into the finished figures.

Two: Differences in representation in the same character
That line of wise men who all look exactly the same scream of mass production. Place two Melchiors, or Josephs, or donkeys, side by side and take a look. If they have different facial expressions, clothing or coats, perhaps even slightly different stances, you can be more confident of hand craftsmanship. Also note that even amongst the better makers there’s a variety of quality. I stared hard at Marys from three different shops before I settled on the ones with the most lifelike, delicately-painted faces.

Three: Clothing
The most traditional figures have heads, arms and legs made of clay or wood that are then wired together and covered with real cloth for the clothing that’s then treated to become very stiff. Many other figures on the street are entirely clay: pumped into a mould, popped out, fired, then painted. The latter are still authentic, but they’re cheaper and receive less craftsmanship. If you want to capture the real beauty of presepe, make sure your characters come fully dressed.

These three criteria, and careful shopping over two visits to the street, finally found me getting down to business in Ferrigno. It appears to be a small shop like all the others but is a wonderland just as impressive as Capuano if you head upstairs. (Photo above.)

Here, my new friend Ciro took me through the manufacturing process, helped me find my perfect choices and confirmed the same opinion every other Neopolitan had expressed when shown photos of my family’s existing nativity scene: Jesus was being minded by a wolf, not a dog. I still maintain it’s just an oversized collie, but I added an appropriately scaled hound to my purchases of St. Francis, a new Mary, and a much younger Joseph than my current doddering old man. I will retire the battered originals to handmaiden and shepherd for Christmas ‘24. If I hadn’t been keeping myself under tight budgetary control, I would have dropped another €500 on two of Ferrigno’s exquisite flying angels. They make them here in a variety of colours, shapes and sizes … the bigger they are, the more expensive, obviously. They are exquisite, and it took a real act of willpower to come out of the shop without them.

Ferrara family originals below, my new purchases above

I was still looking for my missing saints. Ciro pointed out that they’d happily make them for me. That was even more tempting than the angelic hosts. But I am heading to Sicily later in the year and if there’s anywhere I’m likely to find a 13 cm figurine of St. Agatha holding her severed breasts on a platter, it will be on her home island. Sicilians love that kind of thing.

I was also amused to see on Ferrigno’s web site that you can commission a custom nativity scene figure of the person of your choice for prices starting from €450. You just have to send photos. Next time you have to find the perfect gift for someone who has everything, there you are. Just like rich Medieval patrons of yore, you can create them to drop in to the nativity scene, immortalised for posterity.

I bet Department 56 doesn’t offer that…

On the trail of Caravaggio in Naples (and London)

Other cities can boast of owning more paintings by Caravaggio: Rome has seven and Milan six against Naples’ trio. Yet the dramatic master of dark and light seems to haunt the streets of Naples to a much greater degree than he stands out in those other places.

Maybe it’s the drama of his time here, his first visit on the run from a murder charge and his second to die after a horrifically violent revenge attack. He was a broken genius who didn’t even make it to 40. Perhaps it’s the fact that, unlike the multitude of famous artists associated with Rome and Milan, he stands well above everyone else who worked in Naples. It could be that his focus on humble realism and the interplay of the grim and the glorious perfectly matches the feel of this city. Or maybe it’s that he left three of his best here: the most enigmatic, the most powerful and the most poignant. Whatever the reason, many tourists to Naples hit the Caravaggio trail to drink in those three works, and we were ready for the pilgrimage.

It wasn’t, however, as easy as you’d think. Under normal circumstances, the paintings live in three different buildings scattered across Naples; do-able in a day though you may not be able to fully appreciate all the rest of the art they share space with. We discovered, however, that one of the three was out of the city on loan. 

Fortunately, St. Ursula was enjoying superstar status at the National Gallery in London, so we could visit it when we got home. The Seven Works of Mercy was hanging in the church of Pio Monte della Misericordia, where it had been since being painted for the charitable foundation in 1607. But where was The Flagellation of Christ? It had been on loan to the Donna Regina museum, but posters throughout the city clearly stated the special exhibition ended on 28 February. The web site of the Capodimonte Museum clearly stated that the loan ended at the end of March. It was mid-April. So we piled in a taxi and headed out of the town centre to the museum housed in the old royal palace, only to discover that not only was the Caravaggio still on loan … but it was about 100 metres away from where we’d gotten our taxi in the first place. We also learned Capodimonte’s most palatial rooms are not open on Sundays. Another somewhat important detail not mentioned on the museum’s web site.

Sightseeing in Italy always requires a hefty dose of flexibility.

Even without its star sights, the Capodimonte museum was a useful starting point for an exploration of Caravaggio. Most of the second floor, which is comprised of traditional galleries rather than palace interiors, hosts an exhibition on Naples in the time of Caravaggio. This explores the financial and artistic boom taking place in the city in the 17th century. It lays out the politics and explains how the Bourbon monarchs invested in the arts to display their power and bring tourists to their city. They went beyond painting and architecture to support a china factory at Capodimonte, wood carving, and the nativity scene figures that are so popular today. Then you get to wander through room after room of artists who were influenced by, and in many cases competed with, Caravaggio. There are some striking works here but, on the whole, the exhibition sets you up to better appreciate just how extraordinary an artist he was compared to everyone else. Only a large canvas by Artemisia Gentileschi stands out as comparable; it’s the blockbuster you don’t want to leave without seeing.

Moving on to the actual Caravaggios, it makes sense to see them in the order they were painted. That means starting with the enigmatic one: The Seven Works of Mercy. The story usually told is that Caravaggio was commissioned to do seven paintings to hang above each of the seven chapel altars in the round church of Pio Monte della Misericordia, and that the often-rebellious artist chose to pack all seven into one blockbuster scene. Caravaggio biographer Andrew Graham-Dixon reveals the truth: his brief from the beginning was to pack the scene. It wasn’t even for the current church. The finished work was so impressive, and so instantly famous, that the charitable foundation that commissioned it built a new church … the one you see today … to better glorify it.

The Seven Works does indeed hang in a beautiful building, with lavish inlaid marble details, paintings above the other altars and sculptural works in niches, but it’s hard to pay attention to anything besides Caravaggio’s blockbuster. Like a magnet exerting its forceful pull, the painting captures all eyes from the minute people cross the threshold, and there’s a perpetual gaggle of humanity gathered beneath it, staring up in slack-jawed awe.

Part of its attraction is the intellectual puzzle it presents in trying to identify the seven acts. Even if you know what you’re looking for, it takes a while to figure out what is essentially a Neapolitan street scene circa 1607. The lady offering her breast to the old man behind the prison gate is rather obviously visiting the imprisoned and feeding the hungry. People who know Catholic saints will probably pick up St. Martin cutting his cloak in half to clothe the naked at the bottom right. But most will need to turn to a guide for the rest. Burying the dead, for example, is represented by the dirty feet of a corpse being carried away into the darkness.

Fortunately there’s a 3D model you can get your hands on that explains each. It’s intended for the vision impaired but is useful for everyone. This is the kind of painting you can stare at for ages, moving from one perspective to another, trying to figure out what’s going on and what all those hyper-realistic people are thinking. My favourite part is the vortex of whirling angels coming in from the top to throw light on the scene and bring down Mary and the infant Jesus as witnesses. It’s mad, and wonderful.

While the Caravaggio dominates, you really should tear yourself away long enough to appreciate a series of sculptures in carved coral that deliver a modern take on the Mercies. Artist Jan Fabre uses small pieces of coral carved into the familiar shapes of Neapolitan jewellery … horns, flowers, beads, spheres … to assemble much larger works that speak to the topics. They’re in niches around the side altars and they are magnificent.

On to the powerful one. 

The Flagellation of Christ is one of the most emotionally arresting pieces of art ever created. Caravaggio takes us close in to the life-sized action as an exhausted Christ is lashed to a column in anticipation of his torture. He’s surrounded by soldiers who treat this as part of their job, perfunctory and emotionless. The man in the bottom corner is tying together the branches he’ll soon use to scourge Christ’s flesh. You don’t need to be a Christian to appreciate this painting. It’s an eloquent and horrifying essay on man’s inhumanity to man. If you believe, it is … as Caravaggio intended … like being present and a witness to one of the most important moments in human existence. 

I can’t remember a painting ever making me cry before. But weep I did. I’d seen this one in reproduction many times but the impact of the real thing packs an enormous punch. 

That’s magnified by the exceptional temporary display. The Diocesan Museum of Naples sprawls over a complex of two churches, both called Donnaregina (old and new) and their accompanying monastery buildings. The new church is a classic explosion of Baroque excess, with multicoloured marbles, whirling saints, dramatic paintings and lashings of gold everywhere. Unusually, there’s a choir loft not just above the entry, but above the altar, and that’s where The Flagellation currently hangs. It is alone in the large, dark space, illuminated by a spotlight just as Caravaggio lit his subjects. The curators have placed a line of remarkably comfortable black leather sofas along the edge of the loft, back to the church below and face to the painting. You’re invited to linger. Sink in. Contemplate.  

A museum employee told me that the painting would go on loan to one or two other places in Italy before being returned to the Capodimonte Museum once its current renovation is complete. There is, naturally, no information I can find on the internet to confirm this. Seeing this painting in the next couple of years will require detective work. 

I probably wouldn’t put the Donnaregina complex on my top 10 list for Naples without the Caravaggio, but if you’re here do take the time to go over to the old church, which has a choir loft that runs two thirds of the way across the length of the building and features a spectacular series of late medieval frescoes under an exuberant carved wooden ceiling. 

With Caravaggio on the brain I couldn’t help but get to the National Gallery soon after my return from Naples to complete the trifecta. The loan of St. Ursula celebrates the museum’s 200th anniversary this year, and the crowds waiting to see the painting underline Caravaggio’s appeal to modern audiences around the world. (Although I was interested to note that on my visit at least a third of the people around me were speaking Italian.) 

Like the rest of the main museum, seeing this painting is free, but it’s displayed in its own gallery just to the right (east side) of the main entrance staircase and you’ll have to queue for it, starting downstairs in the Annenberg Court. While the National Gallery’s web site encourages you to book a place to see it, the only real advantage this gives you is entry through the special exhibitions door, rather than waiting in the main building entry queue. Beyond that, nobody even checks to see your reservation when you join the Caravaggio-specific queue. On the day I visited, wait times were consistently about 20 minutes. This temporary exhibition runs until 21 July and, unlike the wandering of the Flagellation, I think you can consider that a firm date. 

The Martyrdom of St. Ursula was Caravaggio’s last painting. He died two months later in horrible pain after attackers carved strips of skin off his face. Ursula lacks the sharp definition of the Works or the Flagellation. Caravaggio was desperate and on the run, a broken man who was working at speed. The detail may not be there but the emotion remains. We get St. Ursula’s moment of shocked comprehension as an arrow plunges into her heart. The soldier who fired it stands at point blank range; like the men in the Flagellation, he’s just another bloke doing his job. Onlookers behind her are horrified, but can’t do anything to stop the nightmare. Most powerful of all is the observer directly at her shoulder, howling in pain. It’s Caravaggio’s last self portrait. A genius of an artist, a problematic mess of a man, raging at the injustice of a life drawing to its premature close. 

It’s poignant stuff.  

If you can’t get to Naples, at least get to Trafalgar Square. And when in Naples, don’t leave without hitting the Caravaggio Trail. These paintings capture the soul of the city.

Mamma Mia! Neapolitan pizza lives up to its lofty reputation

Every Neapolitan on the planet will confidently tell you that they invented pizza, and theirs remains the best in the world. Testing these claims is one of the greatest joys of any visit to Naples.

A recently unearthed fresco from Pompeii seems to validate the first assertion. It also makes a 2,000-year old proclamation on whether you should be drinking red wine or beer with your slice. (Wine, obviously.) A venerable procession of travel writers and TV presenters have upheld the taste claims; both Stanley Tucci and the BBC’s Clive Myrie have both celebrated the primacy of this humble Neapolitan dish on recent shows. Why pizza in Naples is so much better than its incarnations in the rest of the world is, however, less discussed.

I’m going to offer four reasons why I think Neapolitan pizza is unique, before telling you about two fabulous pizzerias we tried on our visit.

FIRST is the quality of ingredients. Tomatoes from Southern Italy are the best in the world and there’s a strong argument that the San Marzanos grown on the slopes of Vesuvius are the best of those. They provoke eye-rolling delight in tomato-lovers, pull grudging admiration from those who aren’t normally keen, and make most of what we get in England taste like flavourless mush. Cheese is proper buffalo’s milk mozzarella, unctuous and soft, none of this industrially processed stuff. Basil is fresh and sharp. If you go beyond this sacred combo that comprises the margherita, you’ll get equal attention to detail. Everyone is passionate about using what’s seasonal. This is the quintessential example of the Italian belief that great ingredients, treated well, make great food.

SECOND is an elegant simplicity. This seems counter-cultural. As someone with Sicilian blood flowing in her veins, I know that most Southern Italians embrace the maxim “more is more” in most aspects of their lives. But this does NOT apply to Neapolitan pizza. There are none of the “everything but the kitchen sink” combos so beloved in America. Nobody tries to pile a whole block of cheese onto one crust. A Neapolitan pizza probably has between half and a third of the toppings you’d find in most pizzas elsewhere in the world. There is just enough, and no more, to allow you to savour and fully appreciate each element. Everything is in perfect balance. Nothing overwhelms. Which brings us to… 

… the dough. THIRD is that the dough is as important as the toppings. In so many other variations on pizza, the dough is simply a conveyance for getting the other ingredients into your mouth. It’s a wheat-based substitute for cutlery, that people often leave as uneaten crusts after polishing off the topping. Such behaviour would be anathema to Neapolitans. Done properly, it’s sourdough, made daily, and left to rise for 24 hours before use. which means it’s light and pillowy, on par with the best bread anywhere. Neapolitan pizza toppings do not go all the way up to the crust edge, as most others do, but leave a wide margin of dough. This ring or crust is known as the “cornicione”, should puff and bubble in the oven, and is far too delicious to leave behind on your plate.

FOURTH, cooking temperatures are extreme. Wood-fired pizza ovens can be found all over the world these days but few, claim the Neapolitans, get as hot as theirs. The extreme temperatures mean their pizzas cook in about two minutes. That means … coming back to the ingredients … nothing has a chance to lose its flavour in the cooking process. And, critically, the dough at the centre of the pizza is as crisp and chewy as that cornicione.

Neapolitan natives will tell you that who’s making the best pizza changes all the time, that it’s rarely the famous places, and that you should never have to pay more than €10 for a great one. These sorts of places tend not to have seating or take reservations: look for a queue, get in it, order a slice and eat it on the street. We compromised, opting for more upscale places with bookable tables in their dining rooms, but recommended by locals.

Da Concettina ai Tre Santi is on one of the main streets in Rione Sanità, a once-deprived neighbourhood in the middle of a regeneration boom. The Oliva family has been serving up pizzas here for around 70 years, but the neighbourhood’s transformation, recent investment from an Italian venture capital firm and a mention in the Michelin guide have combined to make this a destination restaurant. The interior is lively and has a fresh, quirky blend of art on the walls. The servers are cheerful and most speak English. The wine list is excellent, particularly on the local wines of Campania.

But you’ll forget all of that once you taste the pizza, which will be in front of you minutes after ordering. There’s a whole page of classic margherita options, giving you the chance to mix up your combos of tomato and cheese types. But Concettina pushes beyond the classics with a broad menu of inventive choices. I was keen to try friarielli, a local specialty that’s somewhere between cavolo nero and purple sprouting broccoli and was at the height of its season. It came on a pizza with sausage and cheese. Absolutely exquisite and incredibly rich, it was an effort to finish all four slices on the individually-sized plate but I pushed on. To leave even a bite of something that delicious behind would have been criminal. I swapped bites with friends so sampled the Margherita; some of the best tomatoes I’ve ever tasted. I would have been delighted with that option, too.

Concettina’s dining room is small and books up well in advance. But the good news is that there’s a bustling pick up window from which you can order online, or wander up and order spur-of-the-moment. Once you’re in nearby streets you can probably put away your mapping app and just swim upstream against the flow of pizza boxes being carried away. Those super-hot ovens are clearly good not just for tasty crusts, but for producing a massive turnover of profitable product.

Locals also frequently recommended Salvo, another family-run operation. This one’s across town from Sanità in the upscale Chiaia district, on the main boulevard across from the waterside park. It’s so similar to Concettina in atmosphere and quality of pizza that I honestly can’t pick a favourite.

Here, I was led once again by seasonal vegetables and went for an artichoke and ham offering. It seemed counter-intuitive that both of my Neapolitan pizza choices were without tomato, but the red stuff is not as ubiquitous in the land of pizza’s birth as you’d think. Like the friarielli, fresh artichokes have a very distinctive flavour and were in season. They also have quite a subtle taste that is easily overwhelmed by the sweet acidity of tomato. Instead, it goes perfectly with the mellower sweetness of pork and the silk of cheese. It was one of the best pizza combinations I’ve had.

We were at Salvo’s for Saturday lunch and it was delightful to see the locals enjoying themselves. This is obviously a spot for big group gatherings and we were surrounded by massive tables of families and friends all radiating the joy of life and being together. The big groups did mean the service was a bit slower here, but we didn’t mind.

You could easily eat nothing but pizza in Naples, and I would have loved to try some of the more humble, queue-up-and-eat-in-the-street offerings. But we had a busy schedule. Reservations made our days easier to plan and tables offered a welcome rest from intensive sightseeing. I’d happily return to either of these places. Ultimately, the choice is down to convenience of location. Either will give you a memorable pizza that embodies the four points I’ve laid out above and proves why, though the whole world makes pizza, its origin point in Naples has an edge.

Herculaneum and Naples' archaeological museum deliver a double dose of luxury

What did the Romans ever do for us?

While I don’t remember luxury lifestyles and exquisite interior design being on Monty Python’s list, that’s the inescapable conclusion when you spend the morning wandering around Herculaneum and the afternoon in the archaeological museum where the Neapolitans keep all the wonders they excavated from the sites around Vesuvius. 

We splashed out on our own bit of luxury and hired a private guide for the day, which elevated what would already have been a good experience into a great one. Raffaele is a highly-trained working archaeologist who’s also an accredited and award-winning tour guide. Time living in London perfected his English. It was obvious within the first few minutes that we’d chosen well. Not only did he know his stuff, and have a great sense of humour, but he knew exactly how to time our route to avoid crowds, where to stand for the best views, and which highlights to bring out that visitors on their own might walk right by. (For example: a beautiful fresco of some wine bottles that turned out to be a menu with prices outside a wine bar; something highly relevant to our annual Girls’ Trips.)

I’ve been to Pompeii twice and, in a head-to-head battle, now that I’ve seen Herculaneum I prefer it. The differences are obvious from the beginning, when you arrive at the site without running the gauntlet of souvenir hawkers and tourist tat shops. Herculaneum … or, to give it the Italian name you need to look for on signs, Erculano Scavi … sits in a quiet and comfortable modern suburb of Naples with some apartments looking right down into the ruins. Without the road signs, you’d never guess your way from the train station to the tourist attraction. 

Once through the entry turnstiles you’ll see the most powerful view of the day as you stand above the excavations and take everything in at one glance. Pre-eruption, to be in this spot you would have had to hover, drone-like, about 25 metres above the beach immediately below. Today you’re looking down at the same waterfront buildings, but you’re standing on a cliff edge of the mud and pumice that excavators had to carve away to get to the city. The shoreline that would have been directly below you is now about a mile behind you. Through the doors of what’s obviously a waterside warehouse below you, you can see piles of human skeletons. They are the remains of citizens who flocked to the harbour and took refuge in port buildings hoping for rescue from the sea. It never came. Vesuvius looms on the horizon in front of you, looking innocent … but everyone knows it was entirely responsible for the disaster. Seeing it all at once fills you with awe, wonder and fear.

From a simple logistical point of view Herculaneum is smaller than Pompeii. It’s therefore easer to get around and to take it all in without becoming overwhelmed. It’s not quite as well known, therefore less crowded. The effects of the volcano were slightly different in the two places , so while Herculaneum was still buried and its inhabitants killed, the way it happened means preservation here is better. There are buildings with intact roofs, doors and beams, items of furniture … even a boat … all preserved because the heat was so extreme it instantly fossilised wood into stone-hard charcoal. Instead of the plaster casts of bodies everyone knows from Pompeii, here there are the skeletons. And if you are as obsessed with Roman art and architecture as I am, you’ll notice that stylistically the mosaics, frescoes and architectural details are at a consistently higher level here. There is no single thing quite as blockbuster as the famous frescoes at Pompeii’s Villa of the Mysteries, but in house after house you’ll see exquisite decoration done in subtle detail and striking colours. Pompeii decorators were following trend setters; Herculaneum’s residents were setting the trends.

My favourite was the house of Neptune and Amphitrite, where the sea god and his wife adorn one wall in a mosaic so detailed you may initially think it’s a painting. They’re surrounded by festoons of blue and green decoration, bright as the day it was installed, given texture by a border of sea shells. The colour scheme continues on the adjacent wall where animals bound through a hunt on that bright … and probably very expensive … blue background. Other parts of the room’s walls are done in a vividly contrasting fresco of a garden caught in the fiery orange blaze of sunset. This was a summer dining room, open to the air above, with niches for lamps and a fountain in the middle between the dining couches. It doesn’t take much imagination to recreate the beauty of life here, sipping an exquisite glass of Vesuvian wine to the music of the fountain as lamplight flickered off the glass of the mosaics. 

While Pompeii was a bustling port city, Herculaneum was an upscale beach resort surrounded by aristocrats’ sprawling holiday villas. If you think about the difference between modern Naples and Capri, you’re probably in the right ballpark. Thus Herculaneum had more than the average number of jewellery stores, public amenities and upscale food and wine outlets. The shop beside the house of Neptune and Amphitrite comes complete with wooden wine racks and partitions; possibly the best-preserved retail interior of the ancient world. Outside the best houses you’ll find benches built for “clients” to wait to see their patron. The more people waiting outside your house, the more important you were.

These days, we park ourselves outside the CEO’s office. Same routine, different architecture.

Raffaele explained that the conspicuous consumption here would have been fuelled by rich, freed slaves from Imperial and Aristocratic households who had both influence and cash, but not citizenship. Proclaiming their influencer status in this exclusive place not only built their profile, but smoothed the way for their children who could become full Roman citizens.

Citizens and wealthy freed slaves alike shopped on a gracious high street dignified by a triumphal arch. Most of its decorations are gone and there’s only a bit of the quadriga (four-horse chariot) that stood atop it left in the museum in Naples, but the brick core is enough to impress. Most of the buildings along this street still have their upper stories; some still have wooden screens and awnings. Shoppers might have gathered later to do business in the College of the Augustales, a civic building near the arch with some of the most memorable frescoes in town. 

A short walk away is an impressive school complex where the next generation could prepare to take their role amongst the elite. Most interesting here isn’t the posh architecture, however, but the fact that you can wander into some of the excavation tunnels and get an even better sense of how all of this stuff was chiselled out of the ossified mud. 

If the bustle of town was too much for you, you could sit to enjoy the quiet of small vineyards or orchards; now re-planted based on analysis of the calcified remains from 79 AD. Or you might head off to a small but exquisite gymnasium and bath complex. The separate women’s section still has some original glass in its round window and barrel-vaulted roofs ridged so that the condensation would slide down towards the walls rather than irritate anyone by dripping. Classy.

Don’t leave without checking out the two small museum buildings. One holds the boat that was found on the shore; a hoped-for escape never realised. The other has a collection of treasures brought out of the ground and too fragile or valuable to be left outside. There are more frescoes, statues, lamps, some beautiful pieces of furniture and a lot of gold jewellery that you’d happily put on today.

To see the real treasures of the excavations, however, you need to go back to Naples. After a restorative lunch break, we met back up with Raffaele for Part Two of our tour at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.

This is one of the great museums of the world and, happily, it’s undergone a transformation for the better since my last visit. Back in 2003 the whole building was in deplorable shape, complete with broken windows and vines growing through the gaps. Those windows are whole and clean. The entire place has had a major scrub down and re-paint, and the collection feels like it’s undergone a curatorial revolution in the way objects are grouped and explained. 

Though there are galleries of Egyptian and pre-historic stuff here, this is overwhelmingly a museum dedicated to the glories of Ancient Greece and Rome, brought together by two events. First, the discovery of Pompeii and neighbouring sites saw an unprecedented flow of treasures out of the ground. The presiding king at the time, Charles VII, kicked the military out of its HQ to start storing the finds there, and eventually converted that building into the museum it is today. Second came the same king’s inheritance of the Farnese collection of Greek and Roman statuary through his mother, which he added to his Vesuvian loot.

These days there are at least 30 galleries worth strolling through, so having a guide who knows the collection is tremendously useful. Raffaele took us through the key treasures that were unearthed in the Vesuvius sites, letting us revel in exquisite mosaics, fine jewellery, housewares, glass, and more. 

Some of the greatest treasures are from the Villa dei Papiri, a massive spread that was just on the outskirts of Herculaneum and is not open to the public. Anyone who has visited the Getty Villa in Malibu will be familiar with the Herculanean place, as Getty copied it exactly to build his Californian museum and then stuffed it full of Greco-Roman art. The Papiri artefacts get two large rooms here in Naples, stuffed with wonders. The bronze statues, particularly two young, male runners and a set of decorously clothed women who fuelled a fountain with water from vases in their arms, are so lifelike the story of Pygmalion seems perfectly credible.

Also upstairs, Raffaele showed us the enormous hall that the king built as a library and event space at the centre of his collection. Pride of place here is given to the Farnese Cup, more of a shallow bowl really, carved in agate with one scene on the inside, and another … a magnificent medusa’s head … on the opposite, or bottom. It is beautifully displayed with lights shining on it so you can appreciate the colours of the agate and how the scenes change depending upon the direction you are looking from. There’s also a small exhibition on the famous Alexander the Great mosaic, which is being restored right now so not visible.In another one of those great little tour guide additions, Raffaele also pointed out a sundial built into the floor with inlaid marble and bronze. There is a tiny hole in the roof, and at noon each day the sun comes through to tell you the date and what sign of the zodiac you are in based on where it lands on the floor. Without someone to call it to their attention, most people would walk right by.

My favourite artefacts on this floor are fragments of mosaic columns and niches, all in a glorious blue background, that I would have reproduced for my own garden room if I won a very large lottery.

Raffaele also took us through galleries on the ground floor containing significant treasures from other sites in the Southern Italy. This includes what is probably the best collection of ancient Greek bronzes outside of Greece, thanks to the Romans’ passion for the stuff.

We lingered after the end of our official tour to do the Farnese Collection on our own, marvelling particularly … as all the Grand Tourists before us have … at the larger-than-life sculptural group of young athletes trying to restrain a raging bull. My favourite piece in these galleries, though, is a little-known work. It’s a sculpture about waist high that shows one man wrestling a whole pig onto a barbecue shaped like a kettle, while another adds charcoal below. Might this have been the inspiration for the Weber company? More importantly, is it the first depiction of barbecuing in art? Now there would be an idea for a thesis if I went back to school for an advanced degree.

My brain would have enjoyed another three hours in the museum, but my body had given up. At this point, Raffaele came through one last time with a fabulous tip, sending us across the street to the Galleria Principe di Napoli. The building was partially boarded up, looked derelict and showed no hint of internal promise. And yet, at its centre was an exquisite cocktail bar called Tesoraria. It’s decorated in elegant Liberty style … the Italian version of Art Nouveau … complete with sinuous floral ironwork, statues, draperies, balconies and a magnificent bar. It was as if we had travelled in time to 1900 and Verdi and friends would enter dramatically in white tie and top hats at any moment. The cocktails tasted as good as the place looked, delivered by waiters in crisp uniforms and long aprons. We meant to return, and the restaurant in the basement looked intriguing, but our own garden was so beautiful we collapsed there on other nights for our happy hour.

In fact, everything I saw on our day with the Romans made me want to return to explore more. We covered an enormous amount of ground with Raffaele‘s help, but there is so much more beauty to drink in from that extraordinary time period. I am keeping Raffaele‘s name in my address book. Next time I plan a trip to Naples, he is going to be my first call.

See Naples to live: A chaotic city delivers abundant rewards for those willing to embrace it

Naples is an assault on the senses.

It is the loudest city I’ve ever visited. Car and scooter horns vie with sirens and church bells. Planes rumble overhead toward an airport close to the city centre. The average Neapolitan speaks at a genial shout and works up. Your eyes will need sunglasses not just to shade them from the southern sun hitting a dazzling palette of building colours, but to knock back the fierce visual cacophony of graffiti that covers most surfaces. Exceptional Baroque architecture and Liberty-style statement buildings do battle with centuries of grime and crumbling plaster. Your nose will recoil from car exhausts, the ripe waft of an occasional sewer and old-world levels of smoking. That will soon be countered by the Neapolitan proclivity for strong perfumes and aftershaves and glorious gusts of oregano, tomato, baking dough and charcoal.

Life is lived on the streets but there are few green spaces or spots of solitude. Getting anywhere requires weaving and diving around crowds packed into narrow lanes. Keep one eye always on the ground: streets and pavements are as patchy as a teenager’s skin, with cobbles erupting and holes gaping. Keep the other eye on constant watch for scooters that speed out of nowhere and treat rules of the road with a cheerful disdain. “Vespa” is the Italian word for “wasp”; a triumph of product naming.

Naples is one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in Europe. It was a significant port and cultural hotspot within the Ancient Greek world in the 5th century BC, when the Romans were just a backwater tribe dreaming of expansion. That’s why so much of the city feels like a hotch potch. There is nothing truly new; everything in layered upon the past. The look of the 17th and 18th centuries dominates the main tourist districts. This is when Naples was at its richest and most powerful, with an enormous cultural significance. This, not Rome or Florence, was the must-see climax of the Grand Tour.

It’s quite an irony, then, that today’s Naples seems far less damaged by tourism than Italian cities further north. Venice and much of Tuscany now feel like cultural theme parks staffed by Italians for the benefit of … and to extract cash from … foreigners. Naples is crowded. Traffic is a constant and you’ll be jostled by humanity almost everywhere, but the majority were locals going about their daily lives. We were welcomed, but we were an addition to the life of the city and not the reason for it.

The most obvious example was Sunday evening in a triangle formed by the Castel Nuovo, the Castel d’Ovo and the Piazza della Repubblica, all jammed with people as if it were some massive festival, or crowds were exiting a football match. Nope, just the usual weekend passeggiata in a picturesque part of the city, where the population spills onto the street to promenade, gossip, dance, drink and eat.

There are, of course, tourists here. In high season more than 10,000 a day spill off the cruise ships docking at Beverello, according to one of our taxi drivers. But the majority of tourists … as I did on my first visit in childhood … are only passing through the city en route to Pompeii or Capri. Most of the tourist groups we rubbed shoulders with were Italian teenagers on school trips. Only Spaccanapoli, the long, straight lane that cuts through the heart of the historic district, was truly hard going. But even in the most touristy areas I heard as much Italian as anything else. 

This perspective may, admittedly, come from the time of year of our visit and, more importantly, where we stayed.

Locals continually told us that April and May are ideal times of year. It’s warm but not too hot, generally sunny, with flowers and trees bursting into life. Schools around the world are still in session so the main flow of foreign tourists hasn’t started.

We rented an apartment in the Rione Sanità, a neighbourhood I was distinctly warned not to go near on mylast visit twenty years ago. Times have changed. As with gentrification trends everywhere, the neighbourhood’s cheap rents attracted artists and other creative types. More trend setters followed. Now the local pizzeria is listed in the Michelin Guide and is angling for a star. (Review to come.) This is the best place to stay if you want to have a more authentic Neapolitan experience, for a better price than the traditional tourist hotels.

It still looks rough. Renovation may be taking place inside but from the exterior most of the buildings are streaked with dirt and missing chunks of plaster. One local explained that the city’s UNESCO world heritage site listing is more curse than blessing. It brings the visitors and preserves the history, but strict rules on renovation mean nobody can afford to fix anything.

I think many visitors … particularly Americans … equate that general look of decay with danger. We never felt unsafe, even when taking a wrong turn and twisting though small lanes after dark. There are far more beggars and homeless people lurking in doorways in London than we encountered here. The only real threat are motorbikes racing down small lanes at high speed; it’s essential to move towards the wall whenever you hear a beep behind you. In fact, the neighbourhood was so friendly that by our fifth morning, as we walked down our now familiar little lane with our luggage, the locals in all the small shops along the way smiled and waved goodbye.

Our apartment, Cerasiello, was idyllic. Like almost everything in Naples, its rough exterior belies what you’ll find inside. You enter through a tiny door in battered, ancient gates set in a massive, near featureless building that takes up a whole city block. You find yourself in a courtyard, sky visible four very tall stories above. 

It’s all a bit dingy and the first thing you’ll notice is the rather ugly lift dropped into the middle of the far side of the courtyard, looking like those temporary ones they erect on construction sites. As your eyes adjust to the half light, however, you’ll notice that all four stories of the wall behind the lift are dominated by a grand staircase, crumbling but still magnificent. 

Before the neighbourhood went into decline, it was full of grand palaces, and this was one of them. Once the heavy courtyard door shuts, the noise of the street disappears and the songbirds kept by residents overlooking the courtyard contribute a gentler soundtrack. Potted plants and hanging laundry jostle for space on windows, walls and landings.

Cerasiello is on the top floor. I was very glad of that lift, even though you need to feed it €.20 a ride. The property has four bedrooms, each with en-suite bathroom, surrounding a long sitting room, a small kitchen and a truly magnificent roof garden with a view of Vesuvius. We spent most of our time at home out here, surrounded by enormous potted plants that made it feel like a real oasis from the city. 

The tasteful decor is a mash-up of traditional Italian with a bit of Sicilian and North African, giving the whole place a slightly exotic feel. The owners have taken great care with the lighting, including up lighters on the roof garden and small, stained glass table lamps inside to create atmospheric puddles of light throughout.

You can book individual rooms rather than renting the whole property; in which case the living room, kitchen and roof garden become shared space with other guests. If you only rented one room, ask for the one with french doors that open directly to the roof garden. The window in the bedroom looks towards Vesuvius, while the one in the bathroom looks over the roofs and church domes of Rione Sanità and up at Castel Sant’Elmo. 

Cerasiello is on the very edge of Rione Sanità, only about 200 metres from the Via Foria that divides the neighbourhood from the historic centre. You’re only 10-15 minutes away from key sites like the archaeological museum, the Duomo, the cloisters at Santa Chiara and the street of the nativity scene makers. You’re also close to two different metro stations, though I confess that with four of us to split the cost we took taxis when we needed to go further than our feet would carry us.

Our roof garden and the feeling of being part of a local neighbourhood provided a welcome counterpoint to the noise and bustle of the city. Naples is a perpetual motion machine. It is exhausting and brutal, yet glorious and full of joy. It isn’t an easy city in which to be a tourist, but effort pays vast rewards in the treasures you see, the craftsmanship you can buy and the people you meet. The guys who made us coffee every morning felt like friends by the end of our long weekend.

Neapolitans themselves will tell you that the unique character of this place is due to its position directly beneath one of the world’s most menacing volcanoes. Vesuvius’ last big explosion … the one that buried Pompeii, blew the mountain’s top off and exerted a force equivalent to two atomic bombs … was nearly 2,000 years ago. Most vulcanologists say it's overdue for another major eruption. People live here with a constant awareness of death, reinforced by a muscular Catholicism that reminds people of death and resurrection in every church.

Even the most famous tourist line about the city brings up endings. “See Naples and then die” was the phrase constantly repeated by Grand Tourists, most memorably in Goethe’s letters home. The meaning was that you’d reached the best of everything here, and you didn’t need to see anything else for artistic and cultural fulfilment.

These days I’d change that phrase to “See Naples to live.” I can’t think of anywhere else that’s so chaotically, marvellously, exhaustingly alive.