Afternoon
After a shot of the best coffee in the city at Café Mexico in Piazza Dante, you can spend the afternoon exploring the grid of streets around the so-called Spaccanapoli, the heart of Roman Neapolis where ancient monuments rub shoulders with street food stalls, tiny grocers, once-grand palazzi and shops selling tourist tat and religious memorabilia. Piazza del Gesù, at the western end, is dominated by the eponymous church and an ornate Roccoco ‘guglia’. Just to the east is the Church and Convent of Santa Chiara with a beautiful Gothic interior and a cloister famous for its bright, 18th-century majolica tiles. Close by is Naples’ most celebrated (and most crowded) sight, the Cappella Sansevero, home to Giuseppe Sammartino’s sublime 1753 marble Cristo Velato.
Back on the Spaccanapoli, nip into temple to chocolate Gay-Odin (n. 61) for a gelato and then continue to the vast Duomo where you will be dazzled by the gilt-encrusted Cappella di San Gennaro and the subterranean church of Santa Restituita and its 4th-century baptistery.
Close by are the chapel of Pio Monte della Misericordia with Caravaggio’s seminal Seven Acts of Mercy and crumbling Piazza San Girolamini where Banksy’s Madonna with a Pistol appeared on the back right-hand wall in 2004. San Lorenzo Maggiore is an essential visit if you want to understand multi-layered Naples; under the 13th-century church, ongoing excavations have revealed the astonishing remains of a Greco-Roman city dating back 2,000 years.
A detour down Via San Gregorio Armeno takes you past shops selling pastori or figurines for Christmas cribs. Much of what you see is mass-produced these days, so for the real deal, visit Marco Ferrigno’s workshop at number 10. Continue to leafy Piazza Bellini, a lively evening hub, and bag a terrace table at Café Intramoenia for a Campari spritz – you’ve earned it.