Naples

Numbers are capped at twenty thousand a day. The ticket carries your name, so bring a passport. In the spring and autumn peak, morning and afternoon slots sell separately, and the morning empties first. Inside there is almost no shade and the paving is rough.

Cars stop at the car park; the crater rim lies another twenty minutes up a gravel path. The last eruption was in 1944, so it is still classed as active, and steam leaks from spots inside the crater. In strong wind the upper section closes.

Most of what was dug out of Pompeii was moved here, which is why copies stand at the site. One room gathers the erotic paintings and sculpture; it was kept locked for a very long time and opened only recently. It is far emptier than Pompeii.

A narrow straight lane cutting the old city in one line, the middle axis of the Greek grid. Seen from above the city really does look split, and churches and stalls alternate down both sides. Scooters push through between the walkers.

People queue outside a small chapel for one statue, a Christ lying under a veil. The veil is carved from the same block as the body, a rumour that the cloth had been hardened by alchemy followed it for years, and cameras go away at the door.

The Greeks quarried stone here, Rome ran an aqueduct through it, and in the war it was a shelter. One stretch is so narrow that both shoulders touch, crossed sideways with a candle, which the guide asks about first. It stays cool down there in summer.

Majolica tiles wrap the columns and benches of the cloister, painted with vines and country scenes. The church itself burned in a raid in 1943 and its interior is bare, while the garden came through as it was. It takes a separate ticket.

A fort on a small island pushed out into the bay, tied to the shore by one causeway. Virgil is said to have hidden an egg under the foundation, the castle falling the day it breaks; restoration has run since 2023 and the inside comes back a section at a time.

The workshops that make nativity figures line one lane and stay open the year round. Footballers and politicians stand beside the biblical cast, so whatever happened that year turns up on the shelves, and in December the lane jams solid.

A cooperative of young people from the district runs these catacombs, and the takings stay local. Two high-ceilinged levels make it less close than most, and a few early Christian paintings on the walls still hold their colour. There is no entry unguided.

A gallery in the Bourbon hilltop palace, hung with the Farnese collection: Titian, and Caravaggio's Flagellation of Christ. The rooms are huge and always quiet. The big wooded park around the palace is free to enter.

A former Carthusian monastery crowning the Vomero hill, now a museum. Its showpiece is a vast Neapolitan nativity crowded with hundreds of figures. The garden terraces take in the bay and Vesuvius at once; the funicular gets you up close by.

An opera house opened in 1737, the oldest still in continuous use since it first opened. Red velvet and gilded boxes rise in six tiers. When nothing is playing, guided tours take you inside.

A vast square inside a curved colonnade, facing the Royal Palace, whose niches hold kings from the eight dynasties that ruled Naples. A local game dares you to walk eyes shut straight between the two equestrian statues; nearly everyone veers off.

A Line 1 station where, above the deep escalators, a cone of blue mosaic opens overhead like looking up from under the sea. You need a ticket to get past the gates. Line 1 has several more stations designed by artists.

A sloping grid of lanes laid out in the sixteenth century for Spanish troops, washing strung overhead and scooters weaving past. The Maradona mural at its heart is now a small shrine, always crowded. With lanes this tight, carry your bag on your chest.

A small church where Caravaggio's Seven Works of Mercy, painted in 1607, still hangs over the altar it was made for. Seven scenes pile into one canvas like a dark side street. From a window in the upstairs gallery you see the canvas from above.

A small island; ferries out of Naples harbour make the crossing inside an hour. At Marina Corricella, pink, yellow and pale blue houses stack up the slope like steps. It was Italian Capital of Culture in 2022, and Il Postino was filmed here.

The Bourbon palace about 40 minutes by train from Napoli Centrale, with more than a thousand rooms. The garden runs 3 km of fountains and pools, ending at a cascade. Bikes for hire inside the grounds spare your legs on that stretch.