Wanderlines
Aerial view of the harbour of Naples with Mount Vesuvius across the bay
Italy · Campania

Naples

Three thousand years of city piled on a bay, with a volcano at one end, two buried Roman towns at its feet, three islands offshore and the best pizza on earth for six euros. Loud, generous, falling apart and completely alive.

Jump to highlightsWhere to eat
Photo via Pexels
Overview

The city that never pretended to be tidy

Naples was Greek before Rome existed, the largest city in Italy for most of the last five centuries and the capital of a kingdom until 1861, and it wears all of it at once: a Roman street grid still in use as Spaccanapoli, Gothic churches behind baroque fronts, Bourbon palaces, a working port and a hillside of pastel tenements with the washing out. The centro storico is a World Heritage site that nobody has polished. The bay is one of the great views in Europe, with Vesuvius as its backdrop and Capri on the horizon.

It has also changed in the past few years. The art stations of Metro Line 1 made the centre easy to cross, the lungomare was pedestrianised, the city's restaurants collected a shelf of awards and the murals of Diego Maradona became a pilgrimage. Pompeii now caps its visitors and sells named tickets; Vesuvius sells its crater online only; the Campi Flegrei west of the city shake every few months and close their sites for checks. And in 2027 the America's Cup sails in the gulf, so the waterfront is being rebuilt again.

Three days covers the centro storico, the archaeological museum, a day at Pompeii or Herculaneum and the pizza. Five adds Vesuvius, the Vomero hill and an island. A week lets you dive on the sunken villas of Baia, walk the Path of the Gods and still have an evening left for Chiaia's bars.

Aerial view over the rooftops of Naples towards Mount Vesuvius
Centro storicoSpaccanapoli, Via dei Tribunali, the Duomo, Sansevero, the Christmas-crib street and the underground city.
The royal quarter and ChiaiaPiazza del Plebiscito, San Carlo, the Galleria, the lungomare, Castel dell'Ovo and the bars of Chiaia.
The hillsVomero's castle and Certosa by funicular, Capodimonte's palace and park, Posillipo's villas and the Gaiola reserve.
Around the bayPompeii, Herculaneum and Vesuvius to the east; the Campi Flegrei and Baia to the west; Procida, Ischia and Capri by boat.
Highlights

What to see first

Nine places and the 2026 rules for each. Pompeii's named tickets, the Vesuvius crater and the Veiled Christ are the three to book before you arrive.

The ruins of Pompeii with Mount Vesuvius in the background
35 min by train · €20, named tickets

Pompeii

The Roman town buried by Vesuvius in AD 79 and the most visited ruin in the world: 66 hectares of streets, bakeries, brothels, villas and plaster casts of the dead. Since January 2026 the basic Pompei Express ticket is €20 and Pompei+, which adds the suburban villas, about €25; tickets carry your name, ID is checked at the gate, the site is capped at 20,000 a day with timed slots in high season, and Vivaticket is the only official seller. Take the Circumvesuviana to Pompei Scavi, enter at nine, walk to the amphitheatre first and work back against the crowd. Allow five hours and water.

Pompeii in detail →
Detail of an ancient Roman mosaic floor at Herculaneum
20 min by train · €16 · Closed Wednesday

Herculaneum

The smaller, richer town that the same eruption sealed in volcanic mud rather than ash, which is why its wooden beams, staircases, shutters and even a baby's cradle survived. A quarter the size of Pompeii, with upper floors, intact mosaics in the baths and the boat sheds where three hundred skeletons were found, it is the better morning for anyone with less time or less heat tolerance. Entry is €16, from the Ercolano Scavi station a ten-minute walk downhill, and the Vesuvius shuttles leave from the same town.

Herculaneum in detail →
Bird's-eye view of the Gulf of Naples with the volcano behind the city
Online tickets only · €10

The Vesuvius crater

The volcano that did it is a national park with a gravel track up to the rim at 1,170 metres, where sulphur steams from the inner walls and the whole bay lies below. Tickets are sold only on the park's online site, €10 plus fees, for a timed slot; there is no ticket office at the top and the trail shuts in wind, rain or fire risk. Shuttle buses run from Ercolano Scavi station to the car park at 1,000 metres, then it is half an hour on foot. Details in the hikes section.

The Vesuvius crater in detail →Route guide →
Ancient Roman columns with carved capitals
Centro storico · Closed Tuesday

The archaeological museum

Everything that was carried out of Pompeii and Herculaneum ended up in the MANN, which makes it the finest collection of Roman art anywhere: the Farnese Bull and Hercules, the Alexander Mosaic from the House of the Faun, rooms of frescoes, bronzes from the Villa of the Papyri and the Secret Cabinet of erotica that was locked away for a century. See it the day before the sites, so the ruins have their furniture. Around €22, metro to Museo or Piazza Cavour; closed Tuesdays.

The archaeological museum in detail →
A narrow lane in the old town of Naples with flags and parked scooters
UNESCO · Book Sansevero

Spaccanapoli and the centro storico

The straight street that splits the old city follows a Greek road of the fifth century BC, and everything is on or beside it: the Gesù Nuovo's diamond-pointed façade, Santa Chiara's majolica cloister, San Domenico's square, and in the Cappella Sansevero the Veiled Christ of 1753, marble carved to look like wet gauze, which needs a timed online ticket of about €12 and allows no photographs. Via dei Tribunali runs parallel with the Duomo, San Gennaro's treasure, Caravaggio's Seven Works of Mercy at the Pio Monte and the pizzerias. Via San Gregorio Armeno sells nativity figures of saints and footballers all year.

Spaccanapoli in detail →
A cobbled street in Naples between tall old buildings
Underground · €10–15

Napoli Sotterranea and the Sanità catacombs

The city stands on 40 metres of tuff that it has hollowed out for 2,400 years. Napoli Sotterranea on Piazza San Gaetano takes you down into Greek quarries, Roman aqueducts and Second World War shelters, €10 at the door or €15 online. North of the centre in the Rione Sanità, a neighbourhood that has reinvented itself around them, the Catacombs of San Gennaro are two levels of fourth-century frescoed galleries run by a community cooperative, about €13 with a guide and the San Gaudioso catacombs included; the Palazzo dello Spagnolo's double staircase and Concettina ai Tre Santi's pizza are round the corner.

Underground Naples in detail →
Piazza del Plebiscito in Naples with the colonnade of the church of San Francesco di Paola
Royal quarter · Free square

Plebiscito, San Carlo and the Galleria

The Bourbon capital's set piece: the great curved colonnade of San Francesco di Paola facing the Royal Palace across Piazza del Plebiscito, with the Teatro di San Carlo of 1737, the oldest working opera house in the world, behind it; a guided tour is about €10 and a ticket to the season from €30. The Galleria Umberto I's glass dome of 1890 is next door, the Gran Caffè Gambrinus has served coffee on the corner since 1860, and the Maschio Angioino's white triumphal arch is a short walk towards the port.

Plebiscito and San Carlo in detail →
Aerial view of Naples at night with the city lights and the bay
Vomero · Funicular · Closed Wednesday

Castel Sant'Elmo and the Certosa di San Martino

Three funiculars climb to the Vomero hill, and on its edge stand the star-shaped Sant'Elmo fortress, €5 for the ramparts and the only full panorama of the city, the bay and the volcano, and the Certosa di San Martino, a Carthusian monastery of marble cloisters, a gilded church and the best collection of Neapolitan presepi, the baroque nativity scenes with hundreds of figures. Go late in the afternoon, watch the light go from the ramparts and ride the funicular down to Via Toledo for dinner.

Sant'Elmo and San Martino in detail →
Castel dell'Ovo on its islet beside the Naples seafront
Lungomare · Evening

The lungomare, Castel dell'Ovo and Chiaia

Two kilometres of traffic-free seafront from the Santa Lucia hotels to Mergellina, with Vesuvius across the water and Castel dell'Ovo on its islet, where legend buried a magic egg under the foundations. The castle has been closed for restoration since 2023; its façades are finished, more work is tied to the 2027 America's Cup and no public reopening date has been set, but the fishing village of Borgo Marinari at its foot and its restaurants are open. Behind the seafront, Chiaia is the elegant quarter of boutiques, Liberty palazzi and the bars in the nightlife section.

The lungomare and Chiaia in detail →

Also worth your time

Hill · Closed Wednesday

Capodimonte

Bus or taxi, 20 min from the centre · museum about €15, park free

The Bourbon hunting palace on the northern hill holds the Farnese paintings, Caravaggio's Flagellation, Titian, Parmigianino and Masaccio, plus the porcelain the kings made on the spot, in a 134-hectare park that is the city's lung. Quiet even in summer.

Posillipo

Posillipo, the Gaiola reserve and the Virgiliano park

Bus 140 or Mergellina funicular

The villa-lined cape west of the city: the Parco Virgiliano's terraces over Nisida and the islands, the marine reserve of Gaiola with its two islets and booked summer swimming slots, and the Roman villa of Pausilypon reached through a 770-metre tunnel. The tombs of Virgil and Leopardi at Piedigrotta reopened in 2026.

West · Check on the day

The Campi Flegrei

Cumana railway from Montesanto, or Metro Line 2 to Pozzuoli

The Burning Fields: a caldera of craters, lakes and Roman ruins where the ground has been rising and shaking since 2023, with a magnitude 4.7 quake in July 2026. Pozzuoli's amphitheatre and the Temple of Serapis, the Castle of Baia museum, the Piscina Mirabilis cistern, Cumae and the Sibyl's cave, and Lake Averno, the entrance to the underworld. The Solfatara crater has been closed since 2017 and sites shut for checks after each shock.

Quartieri Spagnoli

The Spanish Quarter and Largo Maradona

Off Via Toledo · the mural on Via Emanuele De Deo

The grid of 16th-century barracks streets climbing the hill west of Via Toledo, washing strung between the balconies, shrines on the corners and, at Largo Maradona, the 1990 mural of the man who won Napoli two championships, now a shrine with its own stalls. Two more titles since 2023 have painted the whole city blue.

Hikes & nature

A crater rim, a coast path called the Path of the Gods and island summits

The walking around Naples is short, steep and spectacular: the volcano's rim in an hour, the Amalfi coast from above in four, the cliffs of Capri and Ischia in a day each. Spring and autumn are the seasons; summer is for the islands and the sea.

JFMAMJJASOND

Walking season: teal = the ideal months, green = fine with an early start, grey = July and August, when the Path of the Gods has no shade and Vesuvius is a dust bowl at 35°C.

A volcanic cone under a clear sky
Easy · Timed ticket

Vesuvius: the Gran Cono

From the car park at 1,000 metres a wide gravel path zigzags up the cinder slope to the crater rim at 1,170 metres in half an hour, then follows it halfway round: 200 metres down into the bowl, fumaroles steaming from the walls, the whole gulf from Sorrento to the Campi Flegrei on the other side, and Pompeii's grid visible below on a clear day. The true summit, 1,281 metres, is off limits. Tickets are €10 plus fees and sold only online for timed entry; print or save them, since the kiosks at the top sell coffee and souvenirs, not tickets.

4 kmreturn
1–1.5 hwalking
170 mascent

Shuttle buses from Ercolano Scavi station take 30 minutes and cost about €20 return; EAV's public bus from Pompei and Ercolano is a few euros each way. The trail closes in high wind, storms and fire risk, and the shuttle companies know before you do. Walking boots are not needed; a windproof layer is. April to June and September to October for air you can see through.

Full route guide →
Positano's houses stacked above the sea on the Amalfi coast
Moderate

The Path of the Gods

The Sentiero degli Dei runs along the cliffs of the Amalfi coast from Bomerano, a hamlet of Agerola 630 metres up, to Nocelle above Positano: eight kilometres of mule track past abandoned farms, goats, terraces of vines and lemons and a 500-metre drop to a sea the colour of ink, with Capri floating off the end of the peninsula. Walking west keeps the view in front of you and the climbing behind. From Nocelle, 1,700 steps or the local bus drop you into Positano for a swim and a ferry home.

Full route guide →
8 kmBomerano to Nocelle
3–4 hwalking
650 mof descent, little climbing

From Naples take the SITA bus to Agerola from Varco Immacolatella, about an hour and three-quarters, or the Circumvesuviana to Vico Equense and a bus. Return by ferry from Positano in season or bus to Sorrento and train. No shade, no water on the path, closures after landslides; check before you go, and do not start after eleven in summer.

Yachts sailing along the rocky coast of Capri
Moderate

Capri: the Fortini path and Monte Solaro

The island most people see from a bar has two real walks. The Sentiero dei Fortini follows the wild west coast of Anacapri from the Punta Carena lighthouse to the Blue Grotto past three Napoleonic-era forts, five kilometres of rocky ups and downs through maquis with nobody on it, recently repaired and free. Monte Solaro, 589 metres and the island's top, is a chairlift of twelve minutes from Anacapri or an hour's climb through the Cetrella hermitage, with the Faraglioni, the gulf and Vesuvius from the summit. The Via Krupp's switchbacks down to Marina Piccola have reopened.

Fortini path guide →
5 kmFortini; 3 km Solaro
3–4 hand 1–2 h
Busback from the Grotta Azzurra

Hydrofoils from Molo Beverello take 45 to 50 minutes and cost €25 to €30 each way including Capri's landing fee; the first boat out and a bus straight up to Anacapri puts you on the path before the day-trippers reach the Piazzetta. Spring and autumn; the Fortini path is an oven in August.

Ischia · Half day

Monte Epomeo and Procida on foot

Ferry to Ischia, bus to Fontana; ferry or hydrofoil to Procida

Ischia's green tuff summit, 789 metres, is an hour and a half up from Fontana with a hermitage carved into the rock on top and the whole gulf around. Procida, the smallest island, is a flat eight-kilometre loop from Marina Grande to the Terra Murata prison, the Corricella harbour and the bridge to the Vivara bird reserve.

Lattari · Car or bus

Monte Faito and the Molare

EAV bus 009 from Vico Equense; the Faito cable car has been closed since April 2025

The forested plateau above Castellammare at 1,100 metres and the Molare, at 1,444 metres the top of the Lattari range, in a four-hour loop with both gulfs below. The cable car from Castellammare has not run since the fatal accident of 17 April 2025 and has no reopening date, so it is the bus from Vico Equense or a car.

Campi Flegrei · 2–3 h

The Astroni crater and Monte Nuovo

WWF oasis above Agnano; Pozzuoli · check openings after quakes

A 250-hectare extinct crater of holm-oak forest and three lakes inside the city limits, with woodpeckers, kingfishers and a five-kilometre loop; Cantine Astroni's vines grow on its rim. Monte Nuovo at Pozzuoli, thrown up in a week in 1538 and the youngest mountain in Europe, is an hour's climb to its crater.

Route guide →
The Campi Flegrei are in a period of bradyseism, the slow rise and fall of the ground, with hundreds of small quakes a month and two of magnitude 4.4 and 4.7 in May and July 2026. Visitors are not restricted, but archaeological sites, the Baia park and the Pozzuoli ferry port close for checks after each strong shock; look at the park's notices and the civil protection bulletin on the morning you go.
Scuba

A Roman town under four metres of water, and walls off the Sorrento peninsula

The Gulf of Naples is not a reef destination: the fish are ordinary Mediterranean and the visibility is ten to twenty metres. What it has instead is the only place in the world where you can swim over the mosaic floors of a sunken Roman resort, and a few serious walls within a day's reach.

A diver swimming underwater in clear blue sea
Snorkel to Open Water · 3–14 mApril to November

The Underwater Archaeological Park of Baia

Baia was the Las Vegas of the Roman Republic, where Caesar, Nero and Hadrian kept villas and the emperors' mistresses kept secrets, and the same bradyseism that shakes the coast today sank most of it into the bay. In three to fourteen metres of water lie the mosaic floors of the Villa a Protiro, the Villa dei Pisoni's garden walls, the statue-lined nymphaeum of Punta Epitaffio, with copies standing where the originals stood until they moved to the castle museum, and the quays of the Portus Julius. The water is often green and silty, the ruins unmistakable, and snorkellers see nearly as much as divers.

3–14 mdepth
Snorkelor Open Water
5–15 mvisibility
14–26°Cwater

Visits are by reservation through the authorised centres at Lucrino and Baia, where a guided snorkel runs about €35, a single dive €50 to €70 plus gear and a two-tank morning €120 to €130, with a park fee of around €5 on top; a glass-bottomed boat covers the nymphaeum for those who stay dry. The Cumana railway to Fusaro or Metro Line 2 to Pozzuoli and a bus get you there. Confirm the day before: the park closes for checks after the earthquakes.

Advanced · Walls

Punta Campanella and Capri

Boats from Marina del Cantone and Sorrento, or from Capri · €50–60 a dive

The marine reserve at the tip of the Sorrento peninsula has the best diving near the city: walls of red gorgonians, the Vervece rock with a bronze Madonna at 12 metres and the Li Galli islets. Capri's Faraglioni drop to 40 metres with gorgonian forests, and the Grotta del Bove Marino is the cave dive.

All levels · Ischia and Procida

The Regno di Nettuno reserve

Dive centres on Ischia · barracuda schools in autumn

The marine park around Ischia, Procida and Vivara: the Secca delle Formiche shoal, Punta Imperatore's drop-off, moray eels, groupers coming back and shoals of barracuda in September and October. Combine with a night on Ischia and the thermal baths.

In the city · Snorkel

Gaiola

Posillipo · guided snorkel trails €10–20, summer bathing by booking

The little marine reserve below Posillipo with Roman ruins on the seabed, octopus, groupers and bubbles rising from fumaroles in the sand, snorkelled with the reserve's marine biologists in an afternoon from the centre of town.

Bottlenose and striped dolphins are regular off Punta Campanella and in the Bocche di Capri, and sperm and fin whales feed in the Cuma canyon off Ischia, where researchers run summer watching trips. Visibility is best in September and October; most centres run from May to October and a few all year with drysuits.
Good food

The pizza that UNESCO protects, ragù that cooks for a day, and a rooftop or two

Naples invented the pizza and the espresso bar as the city knows them, and still eats better for less than anywhere in Italy. The best tables have arrived in the last decade; we list the ones that matter, Michelin's own Bib Gourmand value picks, the pizzerias on the world rankings and the trattorias the city argues about.

A pizza baking in a wood-fired brick oven with flames behind it
Eat this

Pizza, the real one

Soft, charred, floppy in the middle and eaten with a knife and fork or folded into a wallet to walk with: the art of the Neapolitan pizzaiuolo has been on UNESCO's intangible heritage list since 2017. Marinara is tomato, garlic and oregano; margherita adds mozzarella and basil; a montanara is flash-fried before it meets the oven, and pizza fritta is a stuffed, deep-fried half-moon. €5 to €9 in the classic places, €10 to €18 at the ranked ones.

Close-up of a margherita pizza with fresh basil
Eat this

Ragù, genovese and the sea

Sunday is ragù napoletano, beef and pork simmered in tomato for six hours until the sauce goes dark; genovese is its onion-only cousin, kilos of them melted with beef into a sweet brown pasta sauce found nowhere else. Then pasta e patate con provola, spaghetti alle vongole, octopus alla luciana, mussels with pepper, a fritto of tiny fish and parmigiana. Mozzarella di bufala comes from Caserta and Paestum and should be eaten the day it was made.

A street market with a fruit truck in Italy
Eat this

Cuoppo, frittatina, sfogliatella and the coffee ritual

Street food is a paper cone, the cuoppo, of fried fish or fried everything for €5 to €10; the frittatina is a disc of fried pasta with béchamel and peas for €2. The sfogliatella, shell-shaped layers of pastry round ricotta and candied orange, was perfected at Pintauro on Via Toledo in 1818 and is served hot at Attanasio by the station; the babà is a rum-soaked mushroom of sponge. Coffee is drunk standing, short, sweet and fast, and the caffè sospeso, a second cup paid for a stranger, is still a thing.

The best tables

Naples has a dozen serious restaurants and no table in the city holding Michelin's top rating; the only three-star kitchen in Campania is Quattro Passi at Nerano on the Sorrento peninsula, an hour and a half away and worth the drive for one great lunch. These are the five in town, with the 2027 guide due to be announced in mid-November.

The top table

George

Grand Hotel Parker's, Corso Vittorio Emanuele · Domenico Candela · dinner

Candela's Mediterranean tasting menus on the hotel's rooftop with the whole bay and Vesuvius in the glass wall: precise, Campanian in its produce, French in its technique. The city's special-occasion dinner and its most-garlanded kitchen.

€180–250 tasting; à la carte from €100 · $$$$
By the port

Il Ristorante Alain Ducasse Napoli

Romeo Hotel, Via Cristoforo Colombo · dinner

Ducasse's Neapolitan outpost, opened in the Romeo's top-floor room with the harbour below: Mediterranean cooking of the house style built on Campanian fish and vegetables, and a new entry in the 2026 guide.

€180–220 · $$$$
Posillipo

Palazzo Petrucci

Via Posillipo, beside Palazzo Donn'Anna · Lino Scarallo · lunch and dinner

Scarallo moved his kitchen from the centro storico to a terrace on the water at Posillipo, and his cooking, modern Neapolitan with a memory for the classics, is the best fish dinner in the city with the sunset thrown in. Its pizzeria in the centre is in the list below.

€120–160 · $$$$
Centre

Aria

Via Agostino Depretis, near Piazza Municipio · Paolo Barrale · dinner

Barrale brings Sicilian sunshine and twenty years in top kitchens to a quiet room between the port and the centre: tasting menus of vegetables and fish with the odd detour south of the straits, and a sommelier worth listening to.

€100–150 · $$$$
Chiaia

Veritas

Corso Vittorio Emanuele 141 · Gianluca D'Agostino · dinner

The most approachable of the five: D'Agostino's modern readings of Neapolitan dishes, a genovese that tastes of the city and a tasting menu that leaves money for the wine. The one to book when you want to understand what the kitchen here is doing now.

€100–140 · $$$$

Bib Gourmand: Michelin's value picks

Naples has only a handful of Bibs; the three to know, including the newcomer announced for the 2027 guide.

Bib Gourmand

Ostaria Pignatelli

Riviera di Chiaia 216 · lunch and dinner

Neapolitan home cooking at Chiaia prices from another era: genovese, pasta e patate, the day's fish and the city's best-value plate of polpette, in a small room that fills with the neighbourhood.

Bib Gourmand

La Locanda Gesù Vecchio

Via Giovanni Paladino 26, by the university

Ragù, meatballs, seasonal vegetables and the Campanian repertoire done with care in the heart of the old city; book, since the students and the professors know it too.

Bib Gourmand · New 2027

Luminist Cafè Bistrot

Gallerie d'Italia, Via Toledo 177

The bistro inside the bank's museum of Neapolitan painting, with a short, seasonal Campanian menu and a courtyard; the new Naples entry in the pre-announced 2027 Bib list and the smart lunch between the Royal Palace and Spaccanapoli.

The pizzerias

The 50 Top Pizza rankings for 2026 put the best pizzeria in Italy in Milan and the best in the world in London, which Naples took badly. Its own leaders are below, with the classic houses that have never cared about lists.

50 Top Pizza 2026 · No. 3 Italy, No. 12 world

Palazzo Petrucci Pizzeria

Piazza San Domenico Maggiore · Davide Ruotolo

The highest-ranked pizzeria in Naples: Ruotolo's light, blistered discs in the palazzo on the loveliest square of the old city, with toppings from the Petrucci kitchen. Book.

€10–18 · $$
50 Top Pizza 2026 · No. 5 Italy

50 Kalò

Piazza Sannazaro, Mergellina · Ciro Salvo

Salvo's high-hydration dough, which started the modern Neapolitan style, in a bright room by the Mergellina seafront; the margherita with three tomatoes is the order, and the queue is part of it.

€9–16 · $$
50 Top Pizza 2026 · No. 2 Italy, No. 4 world

I Masanielli and Pepe in Grani

Caserta, 40 min by train; Caiazzo, 1 h by car

The two pilgrimages outside the city: Francesco Martucci's I Masanielli in Caserta, the highest-ranked Italian pizzeria on the 2026 world list, and Franco Pepe's Pepe in Grani in the hill town of Caiazzo, home of the deconstructed Margherita sbagliata. Both need bookings weeks ahead.

€12–25 · $$
Since 1870 · Take a number

L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele

Via Cesare Sersale 1, Forcella

Two pizzas, marinara and margherita, a few more these days, in a tiled room that has not changed since the film crews came; still the purest statement of what the thing is, at €6 to €8.

€6–8 · $
Via dei Tribunali

Sorbillo, Di Matteo and Starita

Tribunali 32; Tribunali 94; Via Materdei 27

Gino Sorbillo's giant pizzas and longer queues, Di Matteo's street window of frittatine and folded pizza a portafoglio for €2 to €4, and Starita at Materdei since 1901, where the montanara and the pizza with figs and prosciutto came from. The Tribunali crawl is a Neapolitan evening in itself.

€5–12 · $
Sanità, Fuorigrotta, Pignasecca

Concettina ai Tre Santi, La Notizia and Attilio

Via Arena della Sanità; Via Caravaggio 53 and 94; Via Pignasecca 17

Ciro Oliva's Concettina in the Sanità, a social project with a tasting counter; Enzo Coccia's La Notizia, where gourmet pizza was invented in the 1990s; and Attilio Bachetti's star-shaped carnevale pizza with ricotta points, three generations deep in the Pignasecca market.

€8–18 · $$

Where locals eat

Quartieri Spagnoli · Queue

Trattoria da Nennella

Vico Lungo Teatro Nuovo · lunch and dinner

Waiters who sing, shout and throw the bread, a set menu of three courses for €15 to €20 and a line down the alley: the theatre of the Spanish Quarter, with real pasta e fagioli underneath it.

€15–20 · $
Centro storico

Tandem and Antica Osteria Pisano

Via Paladino 51; Piazzetta Crocelle ai Mannesi

Tandem does one thing, ragù, with bread to mop it, for €15 to €25; Pisano is a family dining room of a dozen tables by the Duomo where the genovese and the pasta e patate taste of somebody's grandmother. Both close when the food runs out.

€15–30 · $
Institutions

Mimì alla Ferrovia and Europeo di Mattozzi

Via Alfonso d'Aragona 19; Via Marchese Campodisola 4

Mimì has fed the city's lawyers, actors and politicians by the station since 1943, fish and pasta under photographs of the famous; Mattozzi's Europeo near the university does the pasta e patate con provola the whole city measures itself against, and a fine pizza.

€30–50 · $$$
Pizzofalcone

Osteria della Mattonella

Via Giovanni Nicotera 13

A tiled room up the hill behind Plebiscito where the menu is recited, the ragù is Sunday's every day and the bill is a relief. Book or arrive at opening.

€20–30 · $$
Pastry and coffee

Pintauro, Attanasio, Scaturchio and Gambrinus

Via Toledo 275; Vico Ferrovia; Piazza San Domenico; Piazza Trieste e Trento

The sfogliatella's birthplace, the sfogliatella hot from the oven by the station, the ministeriale chocolate medallion on San Domenico's square, and the Belle Époque rooms of Gambrinus for the coffee, standing, at the bar, for €1.50. Bar Mexico on Piazza Dante for the strongest cup in town.

€1.50–6 · $
Markets and fry shops

Pignasecca and the friggitorie

Via Pignasecca, off Via Toledo · mornings

The oldest street market in the city for fish, vegetables, tripe stands and the fry shops that fill a cuoppo of zeppoline, crocchè and arancini for a few euros; La Masardona near the station for the pizza fritta that started it all.

€3–10 · $
Nightlife

Chiaia's little bars, a speakeasy on the European list and the oldest opera house in the world

Naples drinks outside, late and cheaply: aperitivo in the lanes of Chiaia from half past seven, students on the Greek walls of Piazza Bellini until two, beach clubs at Bagnoli in summer. The cocktail scene is small and very good, and the San Carlo season is the city's grandest night out.

Europe's 50 Best Bars 2026 · No. 28

L'Antiquario

Via Vannella Gaetani 2, Chiaia · book, dress up

Alex Frezza's 1920s speakeasy behind an unmarked door: leather, brass, live jazz some nights and the most serious classic cocktails in the south of Italy. A fixture of the world's extended list for years and the 28th best bar in Europe for 2026. Archivio Storico in the Vomero, a Bourbon-themed cocktail room, and Barril's garden in Chiaia are the other two addresses for a proper drink.

The baretti

Chiaia: Vico Belledonne, Via Bisignano and Via Ferrandina

From 7.30pm · busiest Thursday to Saturday

Three lanes of tiny bars whose crowds stand in the street with a spritz or a glass of Falanghina for €8 to €12, the aperitivo snacks included, then drift to dinner and back. Enoteca Belledonne, a wine bar since the 1920s, is the anchor; the rest changes names and stays the same.

Centro storico

Piazza Bellini and the university lanes

Via Costantinopoli; Largo San Giovanni Maggiore; Via Cisterna dell'Olio · until 2am

The students' square, with the city's Greek walls excavated in the middle of it, Intra Moenia's literary café and a dozen bars with €3 beers; the lanes south towards the university fill with the same crowd. Bourbon Street on Via Bellini is the jazz club.

Summer, opera and the big nights

Bagnoli, the San Carlo and the stadium

Via Coroglio beach clubs, June to September; Teatro di San Carlo, November to June; Fuorigrotta

In summer the clubbing moves to the beach at Bagnoli, Arenile Reload and its neighbours on the sand under Nisida, and to Nabilah at Bacoli. The Teatro di San Carlo's opera and ballet season runs through the winter from about €30. And on match days the Stadio Maradona in Fuorigrotta is the loudest room in Italy.

View of the harbour of Naples with the volcano behind at dusk
Lungomare

Dusk on the water

Aperitivo with the volcano.

Piazza Dante in Naples with its curved façade
Piazza Dante

The square

Coffee at Mexico, then Bellini next door.

Classic Italian architecture in Campania
Galleria

Under the dome

The San Carlo is across the street.

Wine

Vines on the volcano, ungrafted roots in the Burning Fields and the Barolo of the South

Campania grew wine for the Romans and never stopped. Falanghina and Piedirosso grow on volcanic sand inside the city limits, Lacryma Christi grows on Vesuvius, and an hour inland the hills of Irpinia make Italy's most serious southern reds and whites.

Wine bottles lined up on shelves

What to drink here

Falanghina is the house white, fresh and citrus, from the Campi Flegrei and the Sannio; Greco di Tufo and Fiano di Avellino from Irpinia are the serious ones, mineral and nutty and able to age. Piedirosso, the "dove's foot", is the light, peppery red the city drinks with pizza; Aglianico makes Taurasi, the Barolo of the South, and the softer Aglianico del Taburno. Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio, white or red, grows in the volcano's ash. Ask for a chilled Gragnano, a sparkling red from the Lattari hills, with your pizza; the Neapolitans do.

The Campi Flegrei vines are among the few in Europe still on their own roots, because the phylloxera louse cannot live in volcanic sand; Cantine Astroni, on the rim of the Astroni crater inside the city, shows them with a tasting for €25 to €40. On Vesuvius, Sorrentino at Boscotrecase and Casa Setaro at Trecase do tastings with lunch among the vines; in Irpinia, Feudi di San Gregorio's modern winery and Mastroberardino, which replanted vines inside Pompeii, are the two estates for a day with a car.

Chiaia · Since the 1920s

Enoteca Belledonne

Vico Belledonne a Chiaia · evenings

The wine bar that anchors Chiaia's lanes: a hundred Campanian labels by the glass from €5, a wall of bottles to take away and the right crowd on the pavement outside.

Centre and Chiaia

Vinarium and Enoteca Dante

Vico Santa Maria Cappella Vecchia; Piazza Dante

Vinarium is the grown-up Chiaia cellar with plates to go with the glasses; Enoteca Dante on the square pours the natural and small-grower wines of the south to a younger room.

Day trips

Astroni, Vesuvius and Irpinia

In the city; 40 min east; 1 h inland · book tastings

Cantine Astroni's crater-rim vines by bus from Agnano; Sorrentino and Casa Setaro on the volcano after the crater walk; Feudi di San Gregorio and Mastroberardino for Taurasi and Fiano with lunch at Marennà. Tastings run €25 to €60.

Practical notes

Before you go

Getting there

Capodichino airport is seven kilometres from the centre. The Alibus runs every 15 to 20 minutes to the central station and the port for €5, a flat fare on which ordinary city tickets are not valid; fixed-fare taxis cost about €20 to the centro storico or station and €25 to the seafront hotels, agreed before you leave. The metro to the airport is not open: Line 1's Capodichino station is due in 2027. High-speed trains from Rome take 70 minutes, from €20 booked early; make sure yours stops at Napoli Centrale and not at Afragola, which is outside the city.

Getting around

Tap a contactless card at the gates of Metro Line 1, the Centrale and Chiaia funiculars and the Circumvesuviana and it charges the single fare, about €1.50, and caps at the day rate; paper tickets are €1.30 to €1.80 and day passes €4.50 to €5.40. Line 1's art stations, Toledo above all, are sights in themselves. The Circumvesuviana from Garibaldi reaches Ercolano in 20 minutes and Pompei Scavi in 35 for €3.30, crowded and pickpocket-prone; the tourist Campania Express has been suspended since 1 October 2026. Hydrofoils leave Molo Beverello for Capri in 45 minutes, Procida in 40 and Ischia in an hour, €20 to €30 each way. The three-day Artecard Napoli is €27 for three museums and all city transport.

Bookings and fees

  • Pompeii: named tickets on Vivaticket only, €20 or €25, 20,000-a-day cap; Vesuvius: online timed tickets only, €10.
  • Sansevero timed slots online, about €12; Baia dives by reservation; Capri's €5 landing fee is included in the ferry ticket.
  • Tourist tax €4 to €6 per person per night depending on the category, paid at check-out.
  • Shoulders and knees covered in the Duomo and the big churches; no photographs of the Veiled Christ.

Seasons

  • Apr–Jun, mid-Sep–Oct: 20–27°C, the walks and the islands at their best; Easter and May are busy.
  • Jul–Aug: 30–33°C and humid; the ruins at opening time, the sea in the afternoon, the city half-closed around 15 August.
  • Nov: the wettest month; Dec–Feb: mild at 13°C, the cribs of San Gregorio Armeno, the San Carlo season and empty museums.
  • San Gennaro's blood liquefies on 19 September, the Saturday before the first Sunday of May and 16 December; the city holds its breath.

Money and safety

Euros; cards work in most places, cash still rules in the old pizzerias and the markets. Service is usually a coperto; round up. Naples is safer than its reputation but petty theft is real: phones away from the kerb against scooter snatchers, bags in front on the Circumvesuviana, the R2 bus and around the station, and only white licensed taxis or the official fixed fares. Traffic is the real danger; cross with a local. Pompeii's gate has ticket touts, and Vivaticket is the only official seller.

Where to stay

Chiaia for the bars, the seafront and the calmest streets; the centro storico for the atmosphere and the noise, mostly in B&Bs in old palazzi; Via Toledo and the Quartieri Spagnoli for the middle of everything at every price; the Santa Lucia seafront for the grand hotels with Vesuvius in the window; the Vomero for quiet, views and a funicular ride down; around Piazza Garibaldi for the cheapest beds and the trains, with care at night. Expect the America's Cup works along the waterfront through 2027.

Photography

Photo credits

Photographs on this page are by independent photographers published on Pexels under the free Pexels licence. Click a title to open the original.

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