Visiting Naples

Naples is Italy’s third largest city as well as one of its oldest and most artistic. There are many lovely churches and cathedrals, museums to enjoy, and the shining Mediterranean Sea.

The Lungomare is a beach promenade stretching along the shore for 2.4 km along Via Partenope and Via Francesco Caracciolo in the Chiaia neighborhood. Here you can have lovely views across the bay to Vesuvius.

The 12th-century Castel Ovo, the oldest castle in Naples, sits on a promontory at the end of Via Francesco Caracciolo. Inside the castle is an Ethno-Prehistory Museum with ceramics and other artifacts from ancient Naples.

Beyond the castle, you'll find the busiest part of the Port of Naples. Here ferries port and depart for Sicily, Sardinia, and elsewhere.

Step into The National Archeological Museum of Naples and enjoy seeing one of the world’s finest collections of Greco-Roman artifacts. At one time this building was a cavalry barracks and later on the city university’s seat. The museum was established by Bourbon King Charles VII in the late 18th century. He needed a place to store the antiquities that he inherited from his mother and a place to put the treasures that were taken from Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Some of the highlights are the popular Toro Farnese or Farnese Bull sculpture and a series of impressive mosaics from Pompeii’s Casa del Fauno. You can purchase a museum guide to the collection and audio guides in English.

Marble sculptures are found on the ground floor like the Farnese Hercules, a colossal 3.17-meter statue found in the Baths of Caracalla in Rome.

On the first floor, you’ll find the huge Sala Meridiana, or Great Hall of the Sundial, and the Farnese Atlante, a statue of Atlas with a globe on his shoulders. There are also various paintings from the Farnese collection. Looking straight up you’ll be delighted by the very colorful 1781 fresco the artwork of Pietro Bardellino. In the painting, the Triumph of Ferdinand IV of Bourbon and Marie Caroline of Austria is depicted. On display are also many other discoveries from various archeological sites as well as wall frescoes, sculptures, ceramics, glassware, engraved coppers, and Greek funerary vases.

Certosa e Museo di San Martino is a museum housed in a Neapolitan Baroque charterhouse, founded as a Carthusian monastery in the 14th century. You can enjoy many frescoes and paintings that are the artwork of Italian artists from the 17th century.

Chiostro dei Procuratori is a small cloister with a grand corridor leading to the larger cloister Chiostro Grand. There are Tuscan-Doric porticoes, marble statues, and a beautiful garden. Mounted on the balustrade are sinister skulls to remind the monks of their mortality.

Visit the impressive Naples Cathedral initiated by Charles I of Anjou in 1272 and consecrated in 1315. There was a lot of damage done to the cathedral in an earthquake in 1436. A neo-Gothic facade was added in the late 19th century. Inside you’ll see the gilded coffered ceiling in the central nave studded with late-Mannerist art. The high sections of the nave and the transept are the artwork of Baroque artist Luca Giordano.

The Palazzo Reale di Capodimonte became the royal residence and was a place for the king to house the Farnese collection he had inherited. There are artworks by Mantegna, Caravaggio, Raphael, Botticelli, El Greco, Bellini, and Neapolitan artists of the 17th and 18th centuries. The royal apartments have furniture, tapestries, and porcelain that was used during the Bourbon and Savoy Dynasties.

The park surrounding the palace was once the royal hunting grounds. There are avenues shaded by huge trees, statues, and a pond.

In the Latin epic poem Aeneid by Virgil, it is written that Aeneas descended into the underworld from Lago d’Averno. Knowing this you would expect this to be some kind of horrid place. Instead here you’ll see a tranquil place with old vineyards and citrus groves that line this ancient crater. The lake now has a walking track going around it. The name of the lake derives from a Greek word that means “without birds” and legend has it that birds who flew over the lake would fall out of the sky. It is thought that once the lake released poisonous volcanic gasses. This lake was useful to Roman General Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa as he was able to link the lake to nearby Lago Lucrino and the sea and wound up turning this into a strategic naval dockyard in 37 B.C.

Today you can see the ruins of the Temple of Apollo and it had an impressive domed roof but today only four of the great arched windows have survived.

On hot and sultry Italian summer evenings Neapolitans head for the Piazza Dante. Here you can see families in the square eating, playing cards, children running, and so on. On the east side of the square is the huge facade of the Convitto Nazionale. Dominating overall is the large marble statue of Dante.

The Dante metro station has become like an art gallery. Going down the escalator you can see Queste Cose Visibili or These Visible Things by Joseph Kosuth, a huge and neon bright quote from Dante’s II Convivio. At the bottom of the escalator is the artwork of Jannis Kounellis – renegade train tracks running over abandoned shoes. Then above the second set of escalators is the artwork of Michaelangelo Pistoletto – Intermediterraneo – a giant mirror map of the Mediterranean Sea.

To enjoy the view of the sea and boats on the water head on over to Borgo Marinari. Here you can dine on seafood and enjoy cocktails under starry skies. Legend has it that this is the place where the heartbroken siren Partenope apparently washed ashore when she failed to seduce Ulysses with her song. Here the Greeks first settled the city in the 7th century naming the island Megaris.

The five-towered Castel Nuovo is located on the south side of the Piazza del Municipio. It was built by Charles I of Anjou and enlarged by Alfonso I of Aragon. Between the towers, the grand Early Renaissance Triumphal Arch was added. In the courtyard is the Gothic church of Santa Barbara.

The Real Teatro di San Carlo is one of the largest theaters in Europe. It is also one of the premier opera houses in Italy. The theater was built by King Charles of Bourbon, adjoining his Royal Palace. There are six levels of ornately decorated boxes surrounding the interior and a most lavishly ornate royal box. Here you can enjoy operas, concerts, and the ballet.

Galleria Umberto I was named for Umberto I, then King of Italy. It has been designed as a public place for shopping, businesses, cafes, and social space. This tall building has four wings with iron and glass vaulting converging at the center under a glass dome.