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The charter house of San Martino is on the highest point of the city. From the viewpoint you can admire the entire Gulf of Naples: this is real a breathtaking panorama. Here, especially after a rainy day, Naples shows itself with an explosion of colours, alleys, sky, sea. Inside the charter house there’s the Museum of San Martino, where are kept sculptures and paintings dated back in XV and XVI century. If you love the Neapolitan crèche, this museum is an obliged stop: you must not miss the “presepe cuciniello”, which is mounted inside an artificial cave made from an ancient part of the Charter’s kitchens: animals, men, objects, the three wise men, everything talk about Palestine but they represent the city of Naples as it was in 1700, in the realistic faces of the shepherd, in the close to reality reconstruction of the shops. This crèche is the most beautiful and most important of all the Italian crèche collections. During your visit you’ll find a lot of panoramic points from where observe Naples as it is: a city lay down on the seashore.

How to get here: Metro, line 1, stop Cavour, then take the line 2, stop Piazza Vanvitelli. Or Funicular, stop San Martino
When: every day, 8,30 am 7,30 pm. The ticket office close one hour before the closing time.
Tickets: 6 €

This street hasn’t a direction, or to be more exact, it has a direction but nobody cares about it. The mopeds comes from the adjacent quarters with 2,3 or 4 persons on the saddle. The footpaths are full of street vendors of every kind and race. The cars are mixed with people that try to walk as fast as possible to arrive safe at the end of this chaos. Here you can find the stations of the Cumana, the funicular (that brings on the top of the hill of Vomero) and an important stop of the Naples metro lines. When all these public transports arrive at few minutes distance a river of persons overflow into this narrow and long street. Welcome to the Pignasecca of Naples, a street less of a kilometre long where you can find and meet everything and everyone. The best seafood of Naples and the best arancini of Naples; blankets, dresses, bread and fruits at a very cheap price are sold here. You can see the lovely balconies full of flowers, with clusters of tomatoes or chilli hanged up, or with vase of mint, sage and basil. But also dirty streets, ruined walls and cars parked on the footpaths. If you have only few minutes to visit Naples and you want to discover all the good and all the bad of the city, ask someone to show you the Pignasecca.

Proud and melancholic, cuddled by the waves, the Castel dell’Ovo (lit. Egg’s castle) rise on the ancient isle called Megaride. The legend on this mythical place are numerous: someone tells that the destiny of the city is strictly linked with an egg hidden in the underneath of this castle, someone else tells that the name of the city is inspired from Partenope, a mermaid landed at the isle dead. But we can’t forget about Nicolò, the man-fish who brought to the king precious stones that he found in the caves under the island. The street which brings on the top of the castle has suggestive glimpse, but the most beautiful point is the “Terrazza dei cannoni” (lit. guns terrace) from which you can admire a beautiful panorama on the Naples Gulf. All around there is the Mariner village of Naples, which has a very typical structure and a particular atmosphere: it was built to give to fishermen a place to stay, but throughout the centuries it became a place full of cafés, original restaurants and yacht club. This microcosms has a surprising beauty, but be aware that the prices, even just a coffee could cost you a fortune.

When: Monday to Friday 8 am – 7 pm; Public holidays 8 am – 2 pm
How to get here: By feet, it’s on the seashore, near via Caracciolo.

The Maschio Angioino rise between the harbour and the seat of the Neapolitan administration, it controls all the square, Piazza Municipio, and it sight arrives as far as via Caracciolo. During the Angioini domination, it was a beautiful castle and a cultural centre where artists as Giotto and great writers as Petrarca met. Succesively, during the Aragona’s family reign, it became a fortress. It’s very interesting the history of the undergrounds, here there were the prisons and the prisoners mysteriously disappeared. Only after several years it was discovered that a crocodile entered into the prisons by an hole and it transported the prisoners into the sea, making them disappear. Nowadays the castle is a civic museum and, above all in summertime, a place where a lot of spectacles and cultural events take place. The museum path comprehends the Armory room, the Palatina Chapel (or Santa Barbara Chapel), and the first and the second floor of the south part of the castle, the Carlo V room and the Loggia room, the latter is the seat of the cultural events. The Palatina Chapel was frescoed by Giotto and his disciples with images representing Bible stories. At the entrance of the Castle, give a look to the arch, which celebrates the conquest of the Reign of Naples by Alfonso d’Aragona in 1443.

Naples squares reflect the delicate beauty of the summer evening, they live the cold of the rainy winters, they listen to the laughs and to the voices of the boys in the evening, but they are also full of cement, often disturbed by the mopeds and by the noise of the traffic. In Naples the squares are often maltreated and used as parking, but they are never been abandoned: they are the silent and attentive protagonists of everything happens in the city. There are big squares and little squares: the queen of these is Piazza del Plebiscito, which is the point of departure and arrival of every tourist tour and of every stroll. The rival in importance is Piazza del Gesù, which is the centre of the long Spaccanapoli, this square is also a point of meeting for students and not. Not far from Piazza del Gesù you can find Piazza San Domenico Maggiore, little and intimate, with its tables where you can have a tasty typical Neapolitan coffee. If you have a walk in via San Sebastiano, the street known as the “musicians street” and you pass through Port’Alba (the libraries street) you can arrive in Piazza Dante. Big square, a little sad, brightened up from the children who plays football. Dante, from the statue him dedicated, seems to ask himself “What am I doing here?”.

Naples isn’t a city known for its green spaces, but the few gardens that you can find are really stupendous. The Park of Capodimonte, with its beautiful green grass and its typical sentries, which is is the perfect surrounding for the Gallery of Capodimonte; The particular Floridiana, once protagonist of the love affairs of the king Ferdinando IV and today place loved by children and young, this is a little green refuge in the busy quarter named Vomero. The Parco Virgiliano, also called “Rimembranza park”, in the quarter Posillipo, from which you can enjoy a breathtaking view. And the last, but not the least, the Villa Comunale (public garden) which is near the seashore. In this enormous garden there’s the oldest aquarium of Italy (the zoological station Anton Dohrn is inside the park). This garden has been restored in 1999, but this intervention made the garden loose a big part of its neoclassical style, above all the gates and the lamppost. In the centre of the park there’s a big sounding board of iron and cast iron, beautiful example of art nouveau.
So, with a little sun, wind in your hairs and a camera you can spend unforgettable hours, far from the city chaos and from the pollution.

San Gregorio Armeno isn’t a street that exists only in December and that magically disappears in the rest of the year. This street, with its shepherd, its passionate artisans and its ancient atmosphere it is always there, even when it’s not Christmas time, even when it is not necessary to define the pedestrian way (yes, in the Christmas time in San Gregorio is necessary to regulate the pedestrian affluence). Everybody want to see San Gregorio in that period, maybe because they desperately look for a sense for this celebration among the cork crèches and earthen shepherd. The beauty and the charm of the Neapolitan crèche is due to the fact that the nativity is set in the city. That’s why there are typical characters in this crèche that don’t exist in the Catholic tradition, but loved by the Neapolitans as it was: Among this characters which represent the jobs of the city in 1600 have fun looking for “Benino”, the shepherd who sleeps, or Cicci Bacco, the drunk man, traditionally represented unstably balanced on a barrel. Just one tip to you: try to visit this place in a calm period, to have the possibility to see the streets and all its wonders with tranquillity, but if you can’t or you don’t want to, and you prefer to go there in the Christmas period, be ready to push yourself through the crowd.

Naples churches are ancient and charming, a lot of these are enveloped in a mysterious air. Churches with a great historical and cultural importance, Gothic or Baroques, more or less majestic, with serious or joyful façades, you can find them everywhere: places, streets, alleys… Among these you can see the one of “Gesù Nuovo”, with its esoteric symbols and the typical façade, it shares its particular exterior shape with only one other palace, the Diamond’s palace of Ferrara. The interiors are a real jubilation of the Baroque art. The church of Sant’Angelo al Nilo (also known as Brancaccio Chapel). This little church links itself with the legend of a great treasure hidden under the statue of the god Nile, you can find it in the heart of the city on Spaccanapoli. The church of San Francesco di Paola, a neoclassical basilica which, together with the Royal Palace, dominate Piazza del Plebiscito. The construction of this church was the consequence of a prophecy of the Saint. The stupendous Gothic church of Santa Chiara, majestic and austere, with its cloister completely covered of beautiful majolicas. It deserves a visit, even if the greatest part of the church was destroyed by the fire during 1943 bombardment. Or Santa Maria la Nova church, with a stupendous frescoed dome and an interesting museum: the contemporary religious art museum (A.R.C.A.)

In the ancient centre of the city, in the older and more popular part of Naples, there is the Contemporary Art Museum, a building built in only three years and opened to the public in 2005. This construction testify the capacity of this city to accept the new and to brighten this new giving it an unexpected atmosphere. The contemporary art, in this specific case, is a way to demonstrate that Naples and its city dwellers aren’t close minded. The unique link with the past which remains in this Museum is the adjacent church of old Donnaregina, which keeps important medieval frescoes: a real glimpse into history in a completely new reality. The paths that can be done in this museum are various: there’s a permanent exposition, where is always possible to admire works of the greatest artists and photographer of the last century: Andy Wharol, Jeff Koons, Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana and Robert Mapplethorpe. Moreover the museum is seat of important temporary exhibitions, so it is in a continue evolution. The presence of the library, of the café and of a path thought for the young people and for the children show how this museum wants to place itself among the more known Europeans museums of contemporary arts and wants to show a new conception of museum too: a space that should be lived and not just admired.

When: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 10 am to 9 pm. Saturday and Sunday 10 am to midnight.
Never: Tuesday
Tickets: 7 €, reduced ticket 3,50 €. Free entrance on Monday.
How to get here: Metro line 2, stop Cavour. Bus: CS, the stop is the one after Via Duomo.