Naples Favorites

Favorite thing: Neapolitan people are warm, friendly and welcoming.

Especially the one's who are trying to rob you.

Just be careful and try not to be cynical. Enjoy the chaos and the noise and the buzz of life in this great city.

Favorite thing: For those staying up to 3 days in the Campania region, the Artecard is an excellent bargain. For 25 euro you get free admission to two sites, half price off the rest, and unlimited use of all transportation (trains, busses, funicular). So if you only take the Alibus to and from the airport (6 euro), and take the train to visit Pompeii and Herculaneum (10 euro each admission, 3 euro r/t train ticket), you already will save 4 euro. There is a cheaper Artecard for just visiting Naples, but how can you just stay in Naples without seeing Pompeii and/or the Amalfi Coast?

Where to buy: For sale at the airport and train station, and many other locations around Naples.

Website: http://www.artecard.it/index.php?lingua=2

Favorite thing: Take a city tour on a open topped double-decker bus. Various offers to see different sides of the city with a "hop on, hop off” system which allows the tourist to get on and off along the route.

More info:

http://www.napoli.city-sightseeing.it/napoli/eng/default.asp (in English)
infonapoli@city-sightseeing.it
tel: +39 081 5517279

Favorite thing: For every kind of request you can contact this toll free number
800 22 33 66

The service works 7 days a week, 8:30 - 19:30. Automatic answering service all around the clock.

From abroad dial +39 06 39 96 78 51

Website (in Englisgh, but other languages are available):
http://www.turismoregionecampania.it/servlet/page?_pageid=55&_dad=portal30&_schema=PORTAL30&act=0&id_lang=en

Favorite thing: Naples is enchanted. The view from the various balconies in the port is magical. The water is lovely, and the old port is rustic, and beautiful. As the sun moves, the colors along the shore, the rooftops, the hues of stucco, change. It is difficult to find bad food in such settings. I had perhaps the best pizza I've ever eaten while sitting on a balcony, overlooking the harbor. You could have fed me alpo and I would have thought it wonderful. After a overland bus trip to Pompeii, through beautiful countryside, about 45 minutes, we arrived at the city of Pompeii. It was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream to see the historical ruins. As much as I have read, and as many documentaries as I have seen, I still was bowled over. An absolutely must see. Pleanty of shops and hawkers, selling very fine pieces to take home for just a few euros.

Fondest memory: Did I tell you I had the absolutely best pizza of my life there? This while sitting on a piazza, as dusk fell, magical twinkle lights came on, and music filled the streets. No wonder everyone there smiles.

Favorite thing: Neapolitan cuisine is famous worldwide, and there is no shortage in Naples of quality restaurants catering to all budgets. Dining in a Neapolitan restaurant is traditionally a festive occasion - enlivened by the numerous variety of savory pasta and pizza dishes listed on most menus. Although pizza and pasta are the culinary symbols of Neapolitan cuisine, Naples is also known for its superb cheeses (including the famous mozzarella), its tasty fish and seafood dishes, and its delicious ice cream and pastries.

Favorite thing: There have been religious associations with this site for more than 2000 years. A pagan temple was located here when Naples was "Neapolis" - the new city of Magna Graecia. Christians of the 8th Century built a church here dedicated to St. Paul, and retained two large Corinthian columns which dominate the balcony facing the Piazza.

Much of the church was heavily damaged in earthquakes of the 17th century, and rebuilt in the course of the 18th. Much of the interior is gilded in late Baroque splendor. The church was again heavily damaged in 1943 during the Allied bombing of Naples, and has (again) been beautifully restored.

In its intricate layering of distant and recent pasts, San Paolo Maggiore is a very Neapolitan place!

Favorite thing: I was strolling one afternoon in Naples and noticed this striking and recently renovated building at the corner of Via Duomo and Via San Biagio al Librai. I snapped a picture of it, but I didn't take the time to check out what it was. When I was back in Michigan and had my photos, no matter how much research I did in my travel guides and on the internet, this was one structure which I could not identify. What is a person do? Simple answer: ask our talented and helpful VT community for assistance!

A wonderful band of students in Tourism Studies at the University of Naples "Federico II" saw my posting. (They go by "egicom05" and they have a great page on Naples themselves.) They took time out to check the building and report back what is was. Isn't that keen? That's what the internet should be all about!

So that's how I know that this building was at one time the "Church of the Archconfraternity of the 3rd Order of St. Francis." Though it hasn't been used religiously since 1900, the building is currently been cleaned up and renovated, with part of the structure to be used as apartments! This would be a great location to live in Naples - right in the middle of everything.