Naples is a surprisingly large city,
and a sprawling one, with a centre
that has many different focuses. The
area between Piazza Garibaldi and
Via Toledo, roughly corresponding to
the old Roman Neapolis (much of
which is still unexcavated below the
ground), makes up the old part of
the city - the
centro storico
- the main streets still following
the path of the old Roman roads.
This is much the liveliest, most
teeming part of town, an open-air
kasbah of hawking, yelling humanity
that makes up in energy what it
lacks in grace. Buildings rise high
on either side of the narrow,
crowded streets, cobwebbed with
washing; there's little light, not
even much sense of the rest of the
city outside - certainly not of the
proximity of the sea.
But the insularity of the centro
storico is deceptive, and in
reality there's another, quite
different side to Naples, one that's
much more like the sunwashed Bay of
Naples murals you've seen in cheap
restaurants back home. Via Toledo
, the main street of the city, edges
the old centre from the Palazzo
Reale up to the Museo
Nazionale Archeologico and the
heights of Capodimonte ; to
the left rises the Vómero ,
with its fancy housing and museums,
and the smug neighbourhood of Chiaia
, beyond which lies the long green
boulevard of Riviera de Chiara
, stretching around to the districts
of Mergellina and Posillipo
: all neighbourhoods that exert
quite a different kind of pull -
that of an airy waterfront city,
with views, seafood eaten al
fresco and peace and quiet.
