Naples is the home of pizza. Wherever you are in the city, you’re never far from an oven, crackling wood and the delicious aroma of freshly baked pizza. They take it so seriously that in 2004, the ministry for agriculture issued regulations outlining how a real Neapolitan pizza, pizza verace napoletana, should be made. Any gourmand with even a passing knowledge of Italy’s food culture will know that Naples is famous for more than pizza: there’s coffee, too. Neapolitan coffee is short and very, very strong. Neapolitans are passionate about ice-cream, so you can expect the best. Neapolitans have unique traditions for dealing with their dead, the origins of which have been obscured by time. People ‘adopt’ skulls in the city’s hypogea (underground tombs), bringing the bones gifts, clothes, pillows and flowers, or even building small wooden houses for them. In return, the souls belonging to the skulls are supposed to protect and grant favours to their caretakers. It is a tradition in Piazza del Plebiscito to close your eyes, with your back to the Palazzo Reale, and try to walk between the two bronze horses. It’s not half as easy as it seems, due to the imperceptible slope of the piazza. A place of pilgramage for opera devotees, the stately San Carlo remains one of Italy's finest opera houses and the oldest active opera house in Europe. The long seafront stroll from Santa Lucia to Mergellina is a classic , eep an eye out along the Lungomare (seafront promenade) for clusters of padlocks attached to poles, painted with the names or initials of couples – the modern equivalent of true love knots. Duomo, Naples’ cathedral, dates from the fourth century, when the basilica of Santa Restituta was founded. The Cappella di San Gennaro – the city’s patron saint, or Museo del Tesoro, contains the relics of San Gennaro and a large number of bronze and silver statues of saints. The most famous remains of all are kept in a 14th-century French silver bust and two vials in a strongbox behind the altar. The bust contains Gennaro’s skull; the vials his congealed blood. Three times a year the blood allegedly liquefies. Vast crowds gather to witness the phenomenon at at the Festa di San Gennaro. For Neapolitan clubbers, summer means the sound of the surf mixed with top quality DJs in one of the many nightclubs along the coast. Certain stations on the city’s underground system act as a forum for rising artistic talents – yours to peruse for the price of a metro ticket. Capri, Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast all lie within striking distance of Naples.
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July 2013
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