48 hours in Naples
Naples deserves 19 sunsets and 500 nights. It is impossible not to connect with her, not to fall in love with that captivating charisma that banishes universal beauty from her neighbors Capri and Amalfi while she stays with rogue life, superstitions and nostalgia.
19:00 CASTLES AND PORTS
In order to get along with this deconstructed metropolis, The first thing to assimilate is that it is impossible to conquer. However, that mirage becomes real from the towers of the Castle of Sant Elmo. This mighty bastion, located at the top of the vomero Hill, reigns over the known city, giving away the indisputable postcard of the rooftops, Vesuvius and the sea. But its battlements and moats are not the only vestiges of that military push and pull that made it the most desired city by all kinds of powers.
Naples has passed through so many kingdoms, so many governments and so many covetousnesses that it always had to be defended. Hence the city has other iconic castles like Castel Nuovo (also known as Maschio Angioino for having been ordered by Philip of Anjou), whose interior is open to visitors who discover its evolution from powder keg to palace, or the of the Ovo. The latter is in a small island converted into a peninsula that also shelters the little port of Santa Lucía, the only one that still has fish market, tattoos and seafaring routine.
21:00 DINNER ON THE SEA
This maritime stronghold has not been spared gentrification with saltpeter. That is, the conversion of its barracks and houses into restaurants and terraces. The good thing is that in Naples it has not been for nothing and his transformation has left as a collateral benefit the Scialuppa. In its cuisine, the classic Neapolitan recipes of the sea dominate, among which the spaghetti frutti di mare shines with its own light, the most rounded mixture between the Mediterranean fishing grounds and the Italian domain of pasta. While the large portions follow one another, the occasional musician improvises and poses between the tarantella tables and memories so that the moment, although forced, is memorable.
View of the port of Santa Lucia and the Castle dell'Ovo
In Naples there is chaos in everything: in its traffic, in its character, in its impossible dialect, in its purgatories at street level and in those laundry that, since the films of Vittorio de Sica, continue to wave like genuine flags in its very blue sky. Let's put a little order with this guide to discover the city in 48 hours.
09:30 BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO NEAPOLITAN COFFEE
In polytheistic Naples each son of his mother prays to her own virgin, to her particular street altar, and to her beautiful skull. Nevertheless, there are several gods that bring everyone together: Vesuvius, Maradona, Sofia Loren and coffee. Because yes, here coffee is a religion whose liturgies require respect and knowledge. The first thing to know is that the grateful glass of water is always for before , to cleanse the mouth and be able to enjoy the shot of caffeine without reminiscences or hindrances of flavor. The second thing is that the coffee here is intense. So much so that in more than one court of the Holy Inquisition it would have been prohibited, if it were not for the fact that today it is the true opium of the people. And the third, that a Neapolitan coffee would not be the same without the pairing with the sfogliatella, a kind of shell-shaped mille-feuille stuffed with ricotta cheese and hints of cinnamon.
10:30 THE STRANGE NEAPOLITAN RECTITUDE
Any cartographer would drool and talk about the historic center of Naples like a perfectly reticulated neighborhood, with square and beveled streets that allow some to end up on the horizon. This is the legacy of the Roman decumans that today delimit a center protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This designation is, in part, his blessing and his cross. On the one hand, it is the tip of the iceberg of its appeal while, on the other, it encourages neighbors and homeowners to neglect their homes to the ground in search of the subsequent saving-all grant.
Be that as it may, the walk through these narrow and mathematical streets has essential loose gifts such as the chapel of San Severo, an amazing church built by the Sangro family that houses some of the most virtuous sculptures in the history of art such as the 'veiled Christ'. It is also worth dedicating a few megabytes of photos to the Piazza del Gesú Nuovo, the cathedral or the Via San Gregorio famous for accumulating more touristic and photogenic Neapolitan nativity scene shops. Here the anecdote takes over everything when you pass by the window of some artisans who make figurines of today's characters. Another necessary stop is at the bar nile, the cavern in which the miraculous hair of Maradona and where the photos are paid with coffees. And, of course, in any of the palaces that open wide showing an Italian-Spanish-French magnificence unsuspected given the narrowness of the streets.
Aerial view of the Cecumanos with its infinite straight artery from Spaccanapoli
12:00 UNDERGROUND
As if entering a magic closet, Going down to the bowels of the city allows you to travel to another world. Most of the buildings in Naples were built with the hopper from the subsoil, generating a network of wells that the Greek and Roman engineers took advantage of to join them and create an aqueduct under the streets up to 476 kilometers long. Thanks to the work of Underground Naples , today you can walk through the cisterns and canals that, after an outbreak of cholera, were emptied and abandoned. Only during World War II was it found another use: as a bomb shelter. The anecdotes about this underworld and its different uses feed a spectacular and curious journey in equal parts. Other alternatives to get to know the parallel universe under the streets is to swarm around the Bourbon Gallery or dare with Catacombs of San Gennaro.
14:00 LOOKING FOR PIZZA
At a lower level than coffee in the scale of deities, pizza is the other gastronomic flag of the city. Its apparent simplicity is a trap in itself, since the density of pizzerias in the city is overwhelming and confusing. Nevertheless, there are three fixed restaurants surrounded by history and good fame. The first is sorbil , the considered best oven in Naples but that, on the other hand, always has a somewhat disproportionate tail. quieter is Le Sorielle Bandiera, an establishment that uses the basil that is being cultivated underground in Underground Naples in an innovative project to revitalize the galleries based on artificial greenhouses. Finally, Brandy , the place of where was margarita pizza invented and that continues to triumph with the same recipe, DNA and Italian character (this creation is inspired by the colors of the country's flag).
Cistern in the underground aqueducts of Naples
16:30 THE MUSEUM OF PERFECT PROPORTIONS
You may not care about Roman art, sites and finds. You may not be interested in mythology or museums. Nevertheless, it is absolutely impossible not to be seduced by the National Archaeological Museum of Naples . It is the definitive center in which the artistic remains of ancient Roman cities such as Pompeia, Herculaneum or Rome itself, thanks to the Farnese collection that was donated to the city when our Carlos III ruled there. The beauty of the images, bodies and representations makes it unlikely that everything went to hell in the Middle Ages. An irrefutable truth that settles when walking through the long corridors of this old study center, a building with enormous ceilings in which the beauty of the statues is multiplied by pure proportionality. And yes, this game of sizes is also sublimated in its dark and 'forbidden' secret cabinet where the most pornographic works of Western antiquity are accumulated.
19:00 ICE CREAM AND WALKS
No secrets or arabesques: the Neapolitans only hesitate and argue when they have to opt for an ice cream parlor. The finalists are always ** Mennella , Casa Infante and Otranto ,** although the average level of the rest that are found in the city under the claim of craftsmanship is quite high. If the first is chosen, the liturgy of tasting his creations while walking invites you to explore the renovated Via Partenope promenade or the recently tamed Communal Park. If the option is Casa Infante, the logical thing is to get carried away by the frenetic pace of shopping on Vía Toledo, while Otranto pairs with the views of the city from the Villa Floridiana park.
The perfect proportions of the sculptures and architecture of the Archaeological Museum of Naples
21:30 WITHOUT TRATTORIAS THERE IS NO PARADISE
Naples has a pending revolution that is probably unnecessary: gastronomy. The avant-garde, the post-avant-garde and the 'nouvelle cuisine' barely have a place here. Why? Simply because its public tends more to take refuge in the tablecloths of the Amalfi Coast and because the Neapolitan recipe book does not saturate or tire. Hence, the best option for dinner is to return to the Decumanos, leave the cufflinks and the decanter at home and enter the show of generous plates and tablecloths in the colors of The Campagnola.
23:30 MANY DRINKS AND FEW FEARS
Thus, by boat soon, one could say that there are few cities in Europe where you can go out on any given Monday. And, of course, Naples is one of them. There is no logical or religious explanation for this phenomenon, what there is is a predilection for the picturesque premises, the good cocktails and the managed barmans. Of course, as the night twists the city and makes it scattered and confused, it is best to bet on San Pasquale, a fairly civilized neighborhood in which night terraces take over the streets and a cheerful beach bar is improvised on any corner. For foodies, Happening is always a hit for your cocktail menu and its utopian intention to make drinks more sophisticated.
Happening or the attempt to sophisticate a rogue cocktail bar
DAY 2
10:00 BREAKFAST IN THE THEATER
The good thing about the ** Ópera Café del Teatro San Carlo ** is that it opens from 08:00 a.m. to 09:00 p.m., so the proposed hours are just a mere suggestion. And the best thing is that This gastronomic space has been renovated by Scartuchio, the quintessential Neapolitan pastry shop. A combination of Parisian sophistication and local delicacies that is irresistible and more so if it is conceived as a prelude to a guided tour of this theater. Opened in 1737, it is the most bombastic building in that Naples that was, for a brief moment in history, the capital of the world. Everything is extravagance and luxury in a visit in which anecdotes are discovered with the kings as protagonists and palatial spaces as its foyer.
11:30 THE OTHER CENTER
Leaving the theater, a second historic quarter unfolds, much more modern and lavish that was created in modernity around the Piazza del Plebiscito. However, there is something artificial in this attempt to make this piece of the city imperial and royal. An error due to imposture that, by the way, they repeated and multiplied when they commissioned Kenzo Tange to create a Manhattan in the 1980s. Today the presumed Directional Center of Naples is a love and I can not anthology whose future is closer to dystopia than to the City of London. However, let us return to the royal Naples, a neighborhood that institutional beauty overflows in its pompous creations. It is inevitable to move to Milan under the skylights of the Umberto I gallery or feel in Turin endlessly spinning in the heart of the Plebiscite, seeing palaces and neoclassical basilicas as if you were in the eye of a zoetrope.
The 'Milanese' Galleria Umberto I
12:30 LONG LIVE THE SUBWAY!
Hell and heaven share an elevator that goes down to the bowels of Naples. It is so. The scariest part of this curious encounter is found in the cemeteries and catacombs that adjoin the pantries of many homes. But the subsoil is also beautiful, even heavenly. That's how he conceived it, almost by chance, Oscar Tusquets when he was commissioned to remodel the Toledo metro station. In it he devised a huge crater of light with which to somehow illuminate one of the halls of this place of passage, making the routine of taking public transport every day beautiful and fascinating. The praise, headlines, and astonishment that this work elicits are neither empty epithets nor hyperboles. They are just fair.
Toledo is only part of an initiative called Metro dell'Arte, a project created in order to fill the new stations of line 1 with creativity. But as it seems that Naples has no filters, no patches, no censorship, no creed, each artist expanded openly. The result is truly marvelous and forces us to do a fun exercise: turn any wall and hallway into a museum and a canvas. No, Duchamp is not innocent.
Toledo, the most spectacular station of the Mettro Dell'Arte
14:00 EAT OR BE EAT
sneak into the Spanish neighborhood can encourage jokes like the one in the previous ladillo. However, if it is done at a reasonable hour and without making much noise, Entering this secluded but centrally located former ghetto carries no more risk than the occasional sneaky glance from a lady behind the net curtains. After all, the streets where the Hispanic barracks were located, later inherited by the lower classes, are experiencing a revitalization process similar to that of Lavapiés or El Raval. Until creativity and culture end up gentrifying everything, gastronomy raises the first flag at Osteria della Mattonella, a fundamental stop on the foodie tour that triumphs thanks to its Genoese , a poor man's pasta dish that has become a legend.
16:00 WHEN CASERTA WAS VERSAILLES
Before going back to the airport, it is worth learn more about the attempt to make Naples an imperial city. For this you have to go to Caserta , the place chosen by Carlos de Borbón to build a palace of gigantic proportions. He chose this location because it was far from the sea and because it had different sources that supplied the rooms. The result is tremendous and megalomaniac, with huge halls where everything shines and for which they brought original mosaics and marbles from Pompeia. His gardens are immense and unfathomable, but it is worth going up to the fountain of Diana and Acteon , where the mountain cries, and even the english garden, a compendium of meadows, lakes and false ruins that Queen Maria Carolina used it to initiate and indoctrinate about Freemasonry.
The palatial opulence of the Royal Palace of Naples.
*This article was initially published on 06.14.2017 and updated