Editorials
Naples Is Where Most Amalfi Coast Trips Begin and Almost None of Them Stop
Naples International Airport is the arrival point for most Amalfi Coast, Sorrento and Capri holidays, yet the city itself, with one of Europe's largest historic centres, is treated by most of those travellers as a place to get through rather than a destination.
By BigTravel.in Editorial Team · · 2 min read
Naples International Airport, a few kilometres from the city centre, is the usual first landing point for a trip built around the Amalfi Coast, Capri or Sorrento, and for a large share of the people who fly into it, that is also as much of Naples as they will ever see: a transfer to a waiting car or the Circumvesuviana train, headed south before the arrivals hall is properly behind them.
One of Europe's largest old towns
The historic centre that gets bypassed this way is not a minor one. UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site in 1995, citing it as one of the largest and most densely inhabited historic centres in Europe, its street grid still tracing the original Greek settlement of Neapolis. Spaccanapoli, the long, dead-straight street that splits the old centre in two, follows one of those original Greek thoroughfares almost exactly.
The city that invented the reason to stop
Pizza's popular origin story, disputed in its finer details but told in Naples for well over a century, credits a Neapolitan pizzaiolo with creating the Margherita in 1889, its colours chosen to match the Italian flag for a visiting queen. Whatever the precise truth of that particular tale, the pizzerias built around it, several claiming histories stretching back generations, are treated in Naples as a point of civic pride rather than a tourist prop.
What Pompeii owes the city
The National Archaeological Museum of Naples holds much of what was excavated from Pompeii and Herculaneum, including mosaics, frescoes and sculpture too significant or fragile to remain on the original sites; visiting the ruins without the museum, or the museum without the ruins, is widely considered to give an incomplete picture of Roman life in the bay, yet most Amalfi-bound itineraries fit in one and skip the other, if they fit in either.
Why the bypass persists
Naples carries a reputation, not entirely undeserved and not entirely current either, for traffic and a general roughness around its tourist-facing edges that Sorrento, Positano and Capri do not have to manage in the same way. That reputation, more than any shortage of things to see, is most of what keeps visitors moving through rather than stopping.
Traveller tips
- The Naples Archaeological Museum is a short metro ride from the historic centre and is worth pairing with, not substituting for, a visit to Pompeii or Herculaneum.
- Spaccanapoli and the surrounding Centro Storico are best explored on foot; much of the old centre is not practical for cars regardless of what traffic elsewhere in the city suggests.
- The Circumvesuviana suburban train connects Naples to Pompeii, Herculaneum and Sorrento, and is the standard way to continue south without a car.
- As with any large Italian city centre, keep valuables secure and stay alert around the main station and busy tourist routes.
Where this is
Naples, Italy
