Escape to Naples: My Two-Week Guide
My fiancé and I just returned from an incredible 14-day tour of Naples and surrounding regions. It’s been well over 2-years since I took a full two-week holiday and disconnected completely. Yep — starting a business is no joke.
This time, I was determined to fully immerse myself in the culture of a new place. It’s my favourite way to travel. I came back to Toronto fully refreshed and ready to dive back into the grind with gusto. I want to share a few highlights from the trip and tips that really enhanced our time in this beautiful city.
Why is Naples a cool place to go?
First off, the history of Naples is pretty incredible. It dates back to Greek settlements in the 2nd millennium BC. During the end of the Greek Dark Ages, a larger colony broke off in the mainland (originally known as Parthenope) and it was re-founded as Neapolis in the 6th century BC. The Greek culture of Naples was important to the later Roman society. When the city became part of the Roman Republic in the central province of the Empire, it was a major cultural centre. In fact, it was the capital of the Kingdom of Sicily from 661–1139 and later the Two Sicilies until the unification of Italy in 1861. Now, it’s part of the Italian republic and the third largest municipality by population after Rome and Milan.
You can really feel the Greek influence in the all the architecture and monuments. We took a trip to the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. The collection is stunning!
Rooms upon room of gargantuan marble statues depicting many of the fixtures in Greek mythology, like Dionysus, Pan and Atlas. My favourite was the mosaic room… the detail and emotion the artists were able to capture using tiny pieces of ceramic is mind-boggling.
Fun Fact: In ancient Naples and areas like Pompeii, mosaics were used to communicate “cave canem” or “Beware of dog”.
Tip: Know when to visit and where to stay
Naples is not an expensive place to visit (you can probably get by on about 12€ to 25€ per day as a food budget), but it’s important to plan your trip according to your travel values.
My partner and I don’t mind braving slightly lower temperatures in the off-season to enjoy fewer crowds and lower prices. When we went in early January, the temperatures were hovering about 12°C to 15°C. Perfect for a light sweater and trekking comfortably! In the summer, the temperatures can get up to 30–35°C and the crowds can be… a lot. I’m a bit claustrophobic and I have social anxiety in crowds, so visiting Naples during a time when there are fewer tourists and a little more personal space (Naples is a super populated city, as it is) was important.
Additionally, prices go up depending on when you visit and where you stay. We found out pretty quickly that going for a beer in our neighbourhood — a gorgeous shopping district called Chiaia — would run us close to 8€ to 12€, and if we walked about 20-minutes down the road to the Napoli Centrale train station, that same beer was 4€ to 6€. Plan accordingly!
There are so many beautiful hotels down on the port of Naples. We actually enjoyed the rooftop of one of them for New Years (more on that later). We opted to get a VRBO apartment for the two weeks we were there. It was more cost effective and gave us a slice of what it’s like to live like a local. Shout-out to Claudio, our amazing host! Our place was cozy, well-appointed and spacious and it was in a perfect location for daily exploration. I loved cooking in our little kitchen and having a homey place to take off the hiking boots and relax for the evening.
Highlight: New Years in Naples
So… wow. Is this the world’s best kept secret? I mean, I’ve seen some fireworks shows in my day, but nothing like this one. My partner and I decided to make a reservation for New Years Eve before we arrived in Naples.
We were hoping for a special night to remember and boy, did Naples deliver. The fireworks shows started in the mid-afternoon and reached peak spectacle at midnight. I’m talking dozens of independent shows, all over the city, for thirty minutes straight. I was utterly blown away and so was everyone else of the rooftop.
We went to UNA Hotel Napoli for our New Years dinner. They have a beautiful rooftop restaurant called Vesuvio that had live music and a seven-course tasting menu (note: they use the term ‘tasting’ but it was much more like seven full main courses. Catalan lobster, octopus pasta, fried salt cod, and more. We rolled away from the table). The dinner, hospitality, music and fireworks were a definite trip highlight. It was pouring rain right up until midnight and then it stopped long enough to go out and enjoy the show.
Tip: Enjoy all the foods
OK, so this one might seem obvious. You’re going to Italy; you’re going to eat some good food. But, I want to highlight that there are so many ways to enjoy Italian cuisine.
We got a lot of the super touristy recommendations before we left. Fried pizza is a Neapolitan delicacy and we had lots of people telling us to check out one specific place or another and when we arrived at said places, the line was around the block! It seemed like every single visitor had gotten the same recommendation. I’m not knocking those places, they’re probably popular for a reason. But, I get super anxious in lines (same deal as big crowds) so we sought out more off-the-beaten-path options.
My top ‘fancy-dinner-out’ experience was at a place called Mosaic restaurant in Naples. It was very swanky and actually had a few different restaurants in one. We opted for the classic Neapolitan menu and I died over the fresh ceviche and pasta Genovese (slow cooked onions, beef and white wine). So delicious.
I’m more of a pasta girl than a pizza girl.
Confession: I ate pasta at least once a day while we were there.
Our top pick for delicious local cuisine that’s easy on the wallet is called Piccolo Ristoro. It’s a small mom-and-pop place by the ferry terminal. The handwritten menus, checkered table cloths and fresh flowers on the table are just too perfect. We had the cannelloni and it was hands-down our favourite meal of the trip.
Finally, if you plan to stay in a place with a kitchen, plan to enjoy some meals in. Visit the neighbourhood corner shops and sample some of the fresh, local produce and foods. We shared some lovely evenings with charcuterie boards made up of delicious local cured meats and creamy Bufalo mozzarella that burst in your mouth (with red wine, of course).
Highlight: Pompeii and a Vesuvian Winery
Pompeii is a huge tourist destination and with good reason. Can you imagine a whole sophisticated civilization being buried under ash for tens of thousands of years?
Grandfather Vesuvius erupted on August 24 in 79CE and buried the city, leaving much of it (including the people) almost perfectly preserved. It was discovered by farmers and excavated over the course of years. It’s still being restored, today. I was speechless.
You can feel the weight of it all still hanging in the air as you roam the streets. You can feel their lives, trapped there.
Something I didn’t know is that this was a pre-Christian society. They worshipped pagan gods like Jupiter, Neptune and Venus. Something our guide told us that really struck me — if Vesuvius hadn’t erupted all those years ago, we would likely never have known it existed. The Roman Empire would have taken over and everyone would have converted to Christianity. To say their infrastructure was sophisticated is actually minimizing quite a bit. They were talented architects, builders and designers. It’s a humbling experience.
This is another situation when I was grateful we went during the off-season. We booked a tour of Pompeii through AirBnB Experiences. We ended up essentially getting a private tour with a very knowledgeable guide. When we were done with Pompeii, a sprinter van picked us up and spirited us away to a magical Vesuvian winery. It was just the two of us, so it all felt very “VIP”, though it was fairly priced.
We rode on horseback through the vineyards and learned all about the ancient practice of wine making. The Vesuvian soil makes for particularly delicious harvests of grapes, oranges and lemons. There are laden orange and lemon trees everywhere. We even made a pitstop to pick an orange and let our horse munch out for a little bit.
Here’s something kind of poetic — the famers plant a rose at the end of each row of vines. If the rose blooms, the soil is sound and the crop will be good. If not, something’s up. We finished the experience with a tasting and lunch at the winery. My favourite was the crispy, floral, bubbly rosé they gave us when we arrived!
So, there you have it!
There is so much more to say about Naples, but these are a few of the magical moments that really made this a special trip for me.
“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” — Maya Angelou
