Pizza, ice cream and death in old Naples

THERE’S more, far more to Naples than the Centro Storico, but if your stay is a short one stick to the anarchic, crumbling wonders of this UNESCO World Heritage status ‘Old Town’. Here are my 10 tips to make the most of it...

1 Stroll down Spaccanapoli

Literally it translates as “Splitting Naples’’ – a rambling street that starts as the Via San Biagio dei Librai, finishes as the Via Benedetto Croce and takes you into the heart of the Centro Storico, the most unreconstituted slice of a city that refuses to compromise. It perhaps boasts less of cultural interest than the parallel Via dei Tribunali, both part of the city’s Greco-Roman grid system, but all first encounters start here (including mine with a rouged lady of night – I passed). Be it Bar Nilo, devoted to the city’s football team and centred around an icon of the saviour, Diego Maradona, or the shabby but gorgeous Palazzo Marigliano of 1513, it is a promenade that effortlessly surprises. Shopping? If gaudy crib figurines are not your bag, grab yourself a toilet roll emblazoned with the head of Silvio Berlusconi.

2 Eat pizza

What’s the point of coming to Naples if you don’t partake of a simply topped crust? First tip, though... never ever buy a curled up slice from a counter. Plonk yourself down at a formica table top in the benchmark De Matteo on the Via dei Tribunali and watch the lads spade your pizza of choice fresh into the fiery oven. Purists would insist it should be either Margherita or Marina. Bustling Da Michele on Via Cesare Sersale serves only these two types – options are greater across the road at the theatrical Trianon d Ciro. At all these places classic pizzas cost a pittance.

Di Matteo; below, a friggitoria serving fried snacks

3 Alternatively tackle salt cod and fried things

Friggitorie are fried food stalls, sometimes shops, which provide Neapolitans with their favourite snacks. Try the fiorilli (courgette flowers in batter), arancini (breaded rice balls stuffed with mozzarella or meat) or any variation on croquette. For the sweet-toothed, the advice is grab a a sticky baba. Salt cod is a strong tradition, too. Discover its varied delights at a new venture, on the fringe of the Centro Storico, the Baccalaria, where a charming bistro, vinoteca and, imminently, deli are dedicated to serving it in all its forms. Maybe salt cod with chickpeas sits a tad heavy on the stomach, but a ceviche of salt cod (below), served with a minerally Campania white is revelatory.

The Veiled Christ

4 Close encounters with death

The obsession with Morte never feels morbid in Naples, squatting there as the counterpoint to all that sex, sunshine and miracles. Two churches in the Centro Storico offer very different death fixations. The first is the exhilarating Cappella Sansevero, home to one of the world’s most beautiful funerary sculptures, a laid-out dead Christ covered in a veil, the whole realistic effect ingeniously carved out of one slab of marble. It was commissioned for this family tomb chapel in in the 18th century. Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco is the site of a death cult that was outlawed by the Catholic Church in the 1960s but apparently continues to thrive underground – literally. Dusty crypt chapels are home to bone-strewn tombs of the anonymous departed, where folk still leave votive offerings. Very atmospheric.

The death cult crypt; below, welcome to the underworld

5 Go into the underworld

If all this has whetted your appetite for the confined dark spaces down below, look no further than nearby Napoli Sotterranea, which offers 90-minute guided tours in the vaults housing the remains of the Greek city of Neapolis, a buried Roman theatre and various aqueducts and cisterns. It’s not the only such tour in the city but perhaps the least claustrophobic.

San Gennaro Chapel

6 Check out the liquifefaction of San Gennaro’s blood

OK, you have to pick your moments to witness the miracle of city’s patron saint, indeed guardian angel against any number of potential disasters, including Vesuvius blowing its top big time. Precious blood of Gennaro dating back to his martyrdom in 305AD is kept in a reliquary in the Duomo (Cathedral). Legend has it that when his body was moved to the church two phials of his dried blood turned liquid in the bishop’s hands,since when three times a year crowds flock to watch this recur. Any time it fails bad times fall upon the city, most recently in 1980 (earthquake) and 1988 (Napoli lost a vital football match against AC Milan the following day). If you can’t make it for the miracle, do visit the ornate Baroque chapel devoted the saint inside the 13th century Gothic edifice, then visit his altar in the crypt.

Section of Seven Works of Mercy

7 Celebrate the city’s greatest artistic son

Caravaggio was actually born in Milan and fled to Naples after killing a young man in Rome. At the end of his tangled, dissolute life he died, apparently of a fever while sailing from Naples to receive The Pope’s pardon. Three of his works remain in the city, the pick of which is in the glorious octagonal chapel of the Pio Monte della Misericordia, HQ of a charity set up in the 17th century to aid the poor. The power and grace of the renegade painter’s Seven Works of Mercy over the high altar can’t be over-estimated. The represented ‘works’ (or acts in some translations) are still relevant – bury the dead, visit the imprisoned, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, clothe the naked, visit the sick and refresh the thirsty (the last Samson quaffing from the jawbone of an ass). Outside along the Via dei Tribunali the silvery ‘still lives’ on the fishmongers’ slabs have an aesthetic appeal of their own. 

8 When it all gets too much closet yourself in a cloister

When the hectic rough and tumble of the city’s street life becomes a bit too much (and it can do) the shady cloister of Santa Chiara is he perfect place for quiet contemplation. The church itself was smashed to bits by wartime bombing and is now restored to somewhere close to the Gothic original. The convent cloister, entered separately, somehow escaped and offers a harmonious blend of box hedges and bucolic majolica tilework. In a special room there’s further evidence of Neapolitans’ devotion to Christmas – a giant Crib featuring a presipio (nativity scene) featuring 18th and 19th century shepherd figures.

9 Or cool off with a gelato

It may be a cliché but Italians do make the best ice creams. Gelato artisanale is everywhere, but my favourite vendor is the teasingly named bespoke chain, Gay Odin, which has an outlet close to the stupendously sumptuous, over-monumental Jesuit church of Gesu Nuova. Founded by a couple from Piedmont (surnames Gay and Odin) back in 1922, it also sells some amazing chocolate. Check out their signature treat, milk chocolate shaped like a tree branch.

A statue against the evil eye

10 Malevolent sprites of the Evil Eye?

I hope the previous nine recommendations have hinted at what a bizarre place Naples can be. Its reputation for street theft and the organised crime clans called Camorra sticks to it like ragu to pasta. I felt perfectly safe on its streets at all hours, though I avoided the sleazy, hawker-filled alleys off the Piazza Garibaldi. Superstition, the stuff of malevolent myth, is harder to dismiss. Not just death cults and liquefying blood – there’s the prospect of encountering a muniacello (‘little monk’, a kind of poltergeist surfacing from the underground labyrinth to play pranks) or malocchio (the ‘evil eye’). In the absence of garlic to ward off nasty folk possessed of the latter, local lore says you have to touch your genitals or make the sign of the horns by cocking your index finger and little finger towards the ground. Not essential tourist info for every city.