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Here is a great article, which I came across in our archives.   It really sums up Naples and the things that you are able to see and do in the region of Campania

A SHADY LADY GETS A LIFT
A fond look at the new Naples
By Helena Zukowski
Canadian Traveller, 2004

Unlike Venice and Rome, cities that were born beautiful, Napoli (Naples) seemed fated by destiny to work hard at becoming alluring.  Despite buckets of charm (like labourers who sang in the street), this “in your face” city struggled endlessly with hopeless traffic, dishonest taxi drivers and a terrible reputation for purse snatching.  The first time I saw the city, more then 35 years ago, it was like wandering onto a Vittorio de Sica movie set, its narrow dark alleys were draped with cobwebs of faded laundry and its shaded cobblestone streets filled with citizens straight out of Neapolitan central casting.
Napoli, and especially the Spaccanapoli quarter where the best churches and noblest palaces were, was seedy and so dangerous in the early 60s that the owner of my pension would cross herself every time I went out.  On my wonderings through the city, I discovered that the churches and museums that sounded so good in the guidebooks all seemed to be hidden at the end of menacing alleys and no matter when I visited, they were bolted shut.  The best museum in the city, the Capodimonte, once a palace built by the Bourbons, had been closed for years.  Among Italian cities, it was well known that Naples was an outcast, a misfit, and the black sheep of the family.
I started hearing stories about Napoli’s rebirth a number of years ago with the reconstruction that followed a massive earthquake that caused so much destruction in 1980.  A committee called Napoli 99 composed of citizens anxious to return the city to its glory days began to elicit private support for the restoration of the great buildings.  Naples had been chosen as the site of the 1994 G7 summit and Neapolitan pride insisted that the world see a cleaned and buffed city.
What might be most impressive about the “new Naples” is how city pride has opened up historic Napoli.  On a recent trip, the first place my guide pointed to with pride was the Piazza del Plebiscito, the city’s main piazza.  Before the cleanup, the large square in front was a chaotic parking lot that blocked both access and the view to some of the city’s most famous sites.  The Teatro San Carlo, Italy’s largest opera house and a rival to Milan, is here along with a splendid semicircular colonnade that reminds you of St. Peter’s in Rome.  There is also the royal palace built by the Bourbons, an ornate stucco, gilt and iron Galleria d’Umerto for shopping and the Caffe Gambrinus, the cities most famous neoclassical coffee house.
A friend and I, Italian phrase book in hand, managed to track down one of the city’s more obscure but most exciting archeological sites – the treasures of San Lorenzo Maggiore in the very center of the ancient city.  The Gothic church (built in 1300 AD on the site of a 600 AD paleochristian church) is striking, but the real excitement lies below the crypt.  Here a cobblestone street about three metres wide and 54 metres long is what remains of an ancient Roman road lined with a series of Roman shops.  A subterranean arcade leads to a covered city market and stone stairs beyond that descend into what was once an agora, the main square of Naples when the Greeks ruled.
The city has been working hard on modernizing the infrastructure with projects such as its enhanced port facility to accommodate more cruise ships and a general plan to make the waterfront attractive to Neapolitans and visitors.  One example of this is the addition of the Citta’ della Scienza, the first interactive science museum in Italy, located in a 19th century factory on the city’s waterfront.  Other new attractions include the Rione Tera, an archeological excavation site in nearby Pozzuoli and once the port from which goods were taken along the Appian Way to Rome.  During the past 10 years, archeologists have uncovered a hidden city dating back to 200 BC that includes 32 buildings, among them the Temple of Augusto.  This ancient beauty re-emerged from the ruined walls of the Baroque Cathedral of Pozzuoli, which was built over it many centuries later.
There’s enough of historical interest just in Naples to fill any holiday, but no one should come without taking a few day jaunts beyond the city.  For a feel of the region’s seismic heart, Pozzuoli and the Phlegracean Fields combine beauty with history, nature and myth (ancient Romans believed this was the entrance gate to Hell).  Orange and lemon groves where Romans once built magnificent villa slope gently into the sea, tranquil counterpoint to the Solfatara, the “sleeping volcano” is prelude to Campania’s most impressive archeological treasure, Pompeii.
When Vesuvius erupted August 24, 79 AD and so suddenly smothered Pompeii and its sister city Herculaneum nearby under a thick blanket of ash, its 20,000 citizens were literally stopped in their tracks.  So much of the ruin has now been uncovered and restored, it’s like being suddenly transported into a world so complete (and in a way modern) it seems like the residents were just mysteriously abducted by aliens.  Villas both luxurious and modest have well-tended courtyard gardens, ovens at the bakeries wait for pans of bread.  There are theatres, public baths, markets, temples and houses of ill-repute, complete with boudoirs that feature stone beds.  Little touches show Roman concern for urban comfort – special stones for pedestrians to use when crossing the cobbled streets so their feet don’t get wet.  The streets themselves have deep ruts, evidence of hundreds of years of chariot traffic.  Inscriptions outside the walls of houses, like modern posters, announce coming elections.  At the immense amphitheatre, you can almost hear the shouts of the gladiators.
The engulfed city slumbered for centuries beneath seven metres of ash until the late 16th century, when Renaissance works department started drilling for a water canal.  When excavation was finally started in 1748, they found a frozen city with bizarre “moulds” of the corpses buried by lava where they fell, the ash being a perfect preservative.  A mother, her arms wrapped around her child protectively, a dog straining at the leash.  A few of these bizarre remains are on the Pompeii site, but most have been taken to the National Archeological Museum in Naples.  Here rooms spill over with statues of the gods and busts of Roman nobles, jewelry, frescoes, mosaics and objects of everyday life.  A collection of weapons and a helmet depicting the fall of Troy that was once worn by a gladiator; a plate with fossilized loaves of bread were found in a bakery. A room full of Roman erotica.
The most beautiful day trip lies to the southeast of Naples where the Bay meets the Gulf of Salerno.  Here the ravishing Amalfi Coast stretches for 48- kilometers along a jagged limestone face with tiny fishing villages and towns built vertically up the cliff-side.  Most of the towns along this coast have been inhabited for thousands of years so that human creativity interweaves with natural beauty.
There are buses from Naples that will take you, but the most romantic way to see the Amalfi Coast is to rent an open-top car.  The winding coast road is narrow and laced with hairpin turns beyond which a sheer cliff drops to the rocky sea.  The two major gems along the coast are Positano and Ravello – like so many beautiful places, Positano has become a dedicated resort town and while many call it the most physically beautiful town in Italy, it has lost much of its pre-rabid tourism charm.  Ravello, with its lump-in-the-throat views out to the sea, is to my mind the most beautiful town on the Amalfi Coast.  Ravello has always been famous for its gardens and its architecture and has lured famous visitors throughout the centuries.  Richard Wagner found inspiration for the Magic Garden of Klingsor in Parsifal in Ravello’s gardens that cling precariously to the Cliffside; Greta Garbo lived here one summer when she had an affair with conductor Leopold Stokowski; Gore Vidal claimed the Villa Cimbrone was “the most beautiful place in the world” – as did Hillary Clinton in a recent visit.
It’s a cliché that everyone loves Tuscany, Florence and Venice – and Rome is Rome. But Napoli?  The unvarnished city will always have its special je ne sais quoi much like the old French courtesan Mme Hortense in Zorba the Greek, not classy but real, and brimming with a wealth of tales and treasures.  And like most black sheep in any family, Napoli is without a doubt also the most interesting.

Must See, Must Do

• Visit the Museo Nazionale Archeological (Archeological Museum).  This is considered Europe’s most important archeological museum and holds the best works of art unearthed in Pompeii and Herculaneum.
• Take in a ballet, classical music or opera performance at Teatro San Carlo, one of the worlds leading opera houses.
• Spend a day at least in the unearthed city of Pompeii, 20 kms southeast of Naples at the foot of Vesuvius. Ditto for the other buried city, Herculaneum 8 kms southeast of Naples
• Art lovers must spend at least an afternoon in the Museum and Galleries of Capodimonte with its many masterpieces by Titian, Michelangelo, Raphael and Caravaggio
• Don’t miss Rione Terra, and archeological excavation in Pozzuoli and the Parco Archaelogico with its extensive ruins of Roman palaces
• Try a pizza in the birthplace of pizza and for the best in espresso, don’t miss the Café Messicana
• Rent a car and drive the Amalfi Coast after mandatory stops in Sorrento to try a limoncello, a frozen lemon liqueur and take a boat cruise over to Capri

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