Naples is the paradise of absolutes, of great faiths and passions, where everything becomes an art: it boasts the most beautiful subway in the world, the most precious treasure, it gave birth to the Margherita pizza, it is home to the largest urban park and it is the city with the most theaters in Italy. Let’s discover a three-day itinerary to capture the thousand souls of its wonderful people.
To understand all the magic of Naples, sacred and profane, we must start from its patron saint, San Gennaro, and therefore from its treasure, the oldest and most precious in the world, which is preserved and can be visited inside the city’s Cathedral, the heart of its historic center.
A treasure that has remained intact from 1305 to today (on the other hand, even Napoleon did not have the courage to “plunder” it and, on the contrary, suggested to his brother Giuseppe, who arrived in Naples in 1806 to become its king, to offer him a cross of diamonds and emeralds as a gift) that houses over 20,000 rare objects, including jewels, gold, silver, paintings and fabrics, donated as a tribute or votive offering to the Saint.
Naples is too special, so not everyone can understand it.
(Marcello Mastroianni)
From here, after touching the “sacred” side of the city, we can continue the walk towards its “profane” one. In the Greek heart of Naples, in fact, there is one of its most characteristic streets, Via San Gregorio Armeno, known throughout the world for its stalls and artisan workshops of Neapolitan nativity scenes, lucky charms, and handmade figurines of any character worthy of devotion, from the Pope to Prince Charles, to the Napoli football palyers.
Faithful to Eduardo De Filippo’s saying that “being superstitious is for the ignorant, but not being superstitious brings bad luck”, here you should receive as a gift a “cornetto” (little horn), perhaps by doing shopping in the Bobò jewelry atelier located in Via San Biagio dei Librai, a perpendicular of Via San Gregorio Armeno, remembering to perform the “activation ritual” so that it will bring good luck.
Not far away, you can visit the Filangeri Museum, one of the city’s cultural treasures, founded in 1882 by Gaetano Filangieri Prince of Satriano, which is located in the fifteenth-century Palazzo Como, a rare example of Renaissance architecture in Naples, which houses all of his art collections, including precious porcelain, and the important library, one of the most beautiful in the world.
The Filangieri Museum is unique in the world, if only for the fact that in 1881-82 it was dismantled piece by piece and then rebuilt to align it with the new street line designed for Via Duomo during the Risanamento. Only in Naples!
A few minutes away, we find a legend of Neapolitan pizza, the historic Pizzeria da Michele, where you can’t book and part of the experience is taking a number and waiting your turn entertained by the local folklore and the friendliness of the staff.
About 10 minutes away on foot, you can reach the most vibrant neighborhood in Naples, Rione Sanità, which owes its recent rebirth to the power of art and culture that have catalyzed and brought to light all its beauty that had been dormant for centuries, waiting only to be rediscovered and enhanced.
Via dei Cristallini is a symbol of this, once the road that took the rulers with their carriages to the residence of Capodimonte and therefore dotted with splendid palaces and important artisan workshops that served them, such as those of crystalware from which it takes its name.
Here, almost opposite each other, are the 2 most beautiful art houses in Naples, where we suggest staying for the night: Casa D’Anna ai Cristallini and Atelier Inès Art&Suites.
The first is the refined 19th-century residence, with 5 designer rooms, of a Grand Tour traveler curated by his landlady Alessandra Calise Martuscelli. The second is the incredible 9-room atelier created by the Tunisian artist Inès Sellami and the Neapolitan artist Vincenzo Oste who carries on the artisan tradition of furniture, objects and metal jewelry of the equally famous father Annibale. Two essential addresses to discover the authentic soul of Naples.
Right under the buildings that house them, the noblest part of the fascinating Napoli Sotterranea (Underground Naples) unfolds, miraculously intact thanks to the mud and debris flows that came down from the nearby hill, before the subsequent reclamation, which preserved the remains. Here, you can visit the suggestive Ipogeo dei Cristallini which houses the best preserved frescoed Greek tomb in the world and, not far away, the famous Blue Church with its original colored installations.
Rione Sanità also offers a lot from the food and wine point of view with one of the best pizzerias in Naples, Concettina ai Tre Santi, the bistrot chantant Cristallini 78 Da Pasquale where you can taste traditional cuisine cheered by a beautiful live singing performance by its owner Pasquale, and the Pasticceria Poppella, where you can taste the delicious “fiocco di neve” (snowflake).
On the second day, we change areas and move towards the Chiaia district where you can stay at the oldest hotel in Naples, the Grand Hotel Parker’s, which was born from the dream of perfect hospitality of an English gentleman, George Parker Bidder III, and continues today with that of the Avallone family who have made it an essential destination of the modern Grand Tour in Italy.
Parker’s also has the most beautiful terrace in Naples, with its 7 Muses, imposing classical statues that frame the sea, the work of the renowned Fonderia Chiurazzi based on copies of original Hellenic works, and the refined George Restaurant, the first two Michelin stars in the city.
The nearby Chiaia stop (Line 6 with trains until around 3 pm) together with the Toledo‘s one (Line 1 with trains until around 11 pm) effectively form the most beautiful subway in the world, designed respectively by the Neapolitan architect Uberto Siola, with artistic interventions by Peter Greenaway, and by Oscar Tusquets Blanca, with his iconic “crater of light” in Bisazza mosaic.
In the evening, you can take a walk in Chiaia, where many small restaurants and wine bars are concentrated, and stop for dinner at the Antica Pizzeria Chiaia, furnished like a Neapolitan grandmother’s house from the 1950s, or at the Salumeria Contavoli, for good wine, cured meats and typical bruschetta.
If the weather is nice, you can also take a taxi and reach the Posillipo district, where you can book at Cicciotto a Marechiaro dal 1942. A restaurant overlooking the shores of the Marechiaro bay, it is one of the most romantic places in Campania, where you can watch the moon reflecting on the sea of the famous seaside village while enjoying a seafood cuisine that has stood out for its quality and splendid hospitality since 1942.
We can only end our day together with the “honorary patron” of the city, the legendary football player Maradona, to whom the famous mural created in the heart of the Spanish Quarters by Mario Filardi in 1990 and restored in 2017 by the Argentine artist Francisco Bosoletti is dedicated, who also created the nearby work Iside Velata that pays homage to the goddess of Wisdom.
Faith, genius, devotion, religiosity, spectacularity, are characteristics that unite Naples and the great Argentine footballer, which is why their love story seems destined to remain eternal. To eat in the area, you can book in two places of typical Neapolitan cuisine: Osteria della Mattonella, in the heart of the Spanish Quarters, or Brigida, near Castel Nuovo, the trattoria home of Gianluca Amoroso.
From here, walking along the central Via Toledo, you can go shopping in one of the most incredible shops in Naples, Mario Talarico since 1860, which creates the most famous umbrellas in Italy, once the official supplier of the Kingdom of Bourbon of the Two Sicilies and of Prince Antonio De Curtis, aka Totò, today chosen by the English Royal House and by dandies from all over the world.
Also on Via Toledo, inside the Intesa San Paolo’s Gallerie d’Italia museum, you can find one of the best gourmand addresses in the city: the 177Toledo restaurant with the Anthill cocktail bar, where you can touch with your hands and “on the palate” one of the most beautiful treasures of Naples: its splendid irony that spares nothing and no one, a great teacher of life in inspiring us not to take anything too seriously.
Here, chef Giuseppe Ianotti, already two Michelin stars for the Krèsio restaurant, stages the best of Neapolitan tradition with a creative cuisine that takes us back to the delicious flavors of Naples with great refinement and ironic coups de théâtre that will make you have a lot of fun. From the cocktail bar’s drinks menu printed like a leaflet inside a package of fake medicines to the restaurant’s menu inspired by the Neapolitan smorfia (a sort of local cabal and national lottery based on numerology).
177Toledo is perfect for ending the weekend in style, pampered by its extraordinary staff, certain that Naples will do good to your heart because here everything alwayd “storta va e deritta vene” (goes wrong and ends up right).
The Secret
Among the many records of Naples, there is also that of the oldest railway station in Italy where work has recently begun on its restoration and recovery.