Naples City Guide - overview

Italy's third largest city thrives on the chaos that prevails amid its busy streets. This is the place where pizza was invented and its restaurants continue to serve some of Italy's finest cuisine.

Sheltering on the Bay of Naples and dominated by the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, Naples is naturally imbued with the best of nature's bounty. The city is somewhat schizophrenic in its juxtaposition of superb museums, Renaissance and Baroque churches alongside crumbling tenement blocks and squalor. Noisy markets sell a collection of items from high-quality food produce to fake designer goods. Roads are characteristically hectic with gung-ho moped drivers weaving wildly through the streets and frustrating traffic jams clogging the city's arteries. Despite its less refined elements, Naples is a fascinating destination and a great base from which to explore the Amalfi Coast, Pompeii and Herculaneum.

The city's transport hub is located around the immense Piazza Garibaldi, on the east side of Naples. The area's growing African population has imbued the streets with the flavours and favours of its immigrants. Southwest from here is the Piazza Bovio and branching to the left of it, the Piazza Municipio and nearby Piazza del Plebiscito. On the watery edges are the Molo Beverollo and the Stazione Marittima, the point of departure for ferries. From the reaches of Spaccanapoli one can explore the historic part of Naples with its numerous palaces and churches.

Getting around: Naples has a public transport network consisting of buses, trolleys and a subway, which is complicated to use but preferable to taking on the city's notorious traffic jams in a hire car or taxi. Tickets for all forms of transport are uniform, and can be obtained at stations and kiosks that advertise the 'Gira Napoli' (Naples Pass). The city's ANM buses are fairly frequent, most departing from the Piazza Garibaldi. There are two metro lines, the 'Metropolitana' line being the one that serves downtown where most sights are located. Funicular railways run up the Vomero from stations at Piazza Montesanto, Amadeo and Augusto. There are taxi ranks in most piazzas, but using a taxi can prove expensive because of traffic congestion.