Things You Should Know About Naples

Jessica was nervous before her first trip to Naples. She went anyway, armed with advice from people who loved the city and helped along by a local guide, and she came home having fallen for the place. Plenty of readers she sent there afterward came back saying the same thing.

Naples still arrives with a reputation. Some of it is earned, most of it is out of date, and none of it is a reason to skip the city. What has changed most since those first visits is that the secret is out. Naples went from the city people warned you about to one of the most talked-about stops in Italy, and that brings its own set of things to know.

Here is what you should know before you go in 2026.

Naples is gritty, but the garbage crisis is history

Naples looks lived-in. Laundry hangs across alleys, scooters park wherever they fit, and the facades in the old center have not been sandblasted for tourists. If you expect Zurich you will be disappointed. If you have spent time in New York, Marseille or central London, the grit will feel familiar.

The images that stuck to Naples came from the garbage strikes and landfill crises of 2008 and 2010 to 2011, when uncollected trash piled up and some of it was set on fire. Most of those piles were in the outer districts and suburbs, not the historic center, and the crisis ended more than a decade ago. On a normal day the old center looks like any busy southern Italian city: a bit messy by evening, swept by morning. Jessica did once see bags stacked in the historic center on a later trip, during a bad week, and life went on around them. It is unpleasant when it happens. It is not a reason to cancel.

Organized crime is real, but what you will meet is petty theft

The Camorra, the Naples area's organized crime network, is a serious problem for the people who live here. It shows up in construction, waste contracts and certain neighborhoods on the outskirts. As a visitor you are very unlikely to see any of it.

What does touch visitors is petty crime. The classic Naples theft is a grab: a phone snatched from a hand, a bag or an expensive watch pulled off by someone on a scooter. Crowded places are where pickpockets work, so be most alert on the Circumvesuviana train to Pompeii, on packed buses, at Piazza Garibaldi and in the crush along Via San Gregorio Armeno at Christmas.

• Leave the flashy watch and jewelry at home. Seriously.
• Carry your bag across your body, on the side away from the street.
• Do not stand at the curb scrolling on your phone. Step into a doorway.
• Keep one card and some cash separate from the rest.

Arriving with your guard up is sensible. Arriving with a chip on your shoulder will ruin the trip, and Neapolitans are some of the most generous people you will meet in Italy.

The pizza really is better in Naples

Rome has good pizza. Naples has a different animal: a soft, blistered, wood-fired disc that you eat with a knife and fork, or folded. Pizza napoletana has been an EU "traditional speciality guaranteed" since 2009, and the craft of the Neapolitan pizzaiuolo went on UNESCO's intangible heritage list in 2017. This is the city's thing, and it knows it.

Everyone has a favorite, and the arguments are part of the fun. L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele on Via Cesare Sersale, which serves only marinara and margherita, is still open and still has a line. Try two or three places and pick your own champion. A few rules of thumb:

• A crowd of locals waiting outside is a better sign than any sign on the wall.
• Go at odd hours (a late lunch, or right at opening in the evening) and the lines shrink.
• For a cheap walking lunch, look for pizza a portafoglio, a small pizza folded in quarters and wrapped in paper, sold from street counters for a few euros.
• Try pizza fritta, the deep-fried version, at least once.
• If a full pizza is too much, ask whether they do a smaller one. Some pizzerias call it a mignon (said as in French).

There is more on our page about Naples pizza places.

The city is huge, but the part you want is compact

Naples is Italy's third-largest city, and from a ferry you can see the sprawl run all the way up the flanks of Vesuvius. Jessica was glad she did not see that view until she had already spent a few days in the city and started to like it.

Ignore the sprawl. The centro storico, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995, is a grid of narrow streets laid out by the Greeks, and you can cross it on foot in 20 minutes. Spaccanapoli and Via dei Tribunali are its two main streets (our Spaccanapoli page has more). From there the Archaeological Museum, Via Toledo, the Royal Palace, the waterfront and the Chiaia shopping streets are all a walk or a metro stop away.

Naples is hilly, so use the funiculars and the metro

The old center is mostly flat. Almost everything around it is uphill or downhill, and distances on a tourist map lie.

• Funiculars. Four of them (Centrale, Chiaia, Montesanto and Mergellina) climb from the lower city to Vomero and Posillipo. The Centrale from Via Toledo is the handiest way up to Castel Sant'Elmo and the views from Vomero.
• Capodimonte. The name means "top of the hill," and they mean it. No funicular goes there. Take a bus or a taxi up to the museum and park, and walk back down through the Sanita neighborhood if your knees agree.
• Metro. Line 1 runs from Garibaldi (the central station) through the center to Municipio by the port and on up to Vomero. Several stations double as art galleries. Toledo, all blue mosaics, is the one people photograph. Line 6 also reaches Municipio. The Line 1 extension to the airport is due around 2027, so for now the airport link is the Alibus (about 5 euros in 2026) to the central station and the port.

Tickets are sold at tobacconists, machines and in the ANM Go app. Our Campania Artecard page covers the pass that bundles transport with museum entry.

It is ancient history you walk through, not look at

Rome keeps its ancient past behind ropes and ticket gates. Naples lives on top of it. The city was founded by Greek settlers, and the street plan of the old center still follows the Greek grid. People run bakeries and repair shops in buildings that have been in use for centuries.

A lot of it is underground. Beneath the church of San Lorenzo Maggiore you can walk through an excavated Roman market street, with Greek remains below that. Several operators run tours of the tunnels and cisterns under the old center. The finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum (the frescoes, mosaics and bronzes) are in the National Archaeological Museum, which is why Naples makes the best base for a day at Pompeii and Herculaneum. See it after the sites, not before.

Stay in the center, not by the station

The streets around Napoli Centrale and Piazza Garibaldi are not dangerous to walk through with a suitcase in daylight, but they are scruffy, busy with hustlers, and not where you want to walk home after dinner. Locals told Jessica not to wander there after dark, especially as a woman on her own.

The bigger reason to skip the station hotels is location. The places you will spend your time are 15 to 25 minutes away on foot. Stay in the centro storico, around Via Toledo, or in Chiaia by the sea, and you will like Naples more. The one case for the station is a very early train or Circumvesuviana departure, and even then the metro gets you there in minutes. We have more on hotels in the historic center and hostels in the center.

Whatever you book, expect a city tax on top. In 2026 Naples charges about 4 to 6 euros per person per night depending on the lodging, for up to 14 nights, and children 14 and under are exempt. Short-term rentals must display a national ID code (CIN) in the listing; if one is missing, book elsewhere.

Most taxi drivers are honest, and you can make sure

Naples taxi horror stories usually go like this: the meter is "broken," and the fare at the end is invented. Every cab Jessica took ran the meter without being asked, and most visitors have the same experience. Two habits keep you out of the stories:

• For common trips, including the airport, the central station, the port at Molo Beverello and Pompeii, the city sets flat fares (tariffa predeterminata). Ask for the flat fare before the car moves. The airport's taxi page explains how it works.
• Otherwise, if the driver will not start the meter, get out and take the next cab.

Some of them will also entertain you on the way.

Naples is not undiscovered anymore, so time your visit

For years the pitch for Naples was that you got a big, historic Italian city without the crowds. That is only half true now. Visitor numbers have boomed, cruise ships unload thousands of day-trippers at the port, and in high season the narrow streets of the old center, the Maradona mural in the Quartieri Spagnoli and the nativity workshops on Via San Gregorio Armeno can be shoulder to shoulder.

It is still calmer than Rome or Venice once you step a couple of streets off the main routes, and most of the city carries on as it always has. To get the best of it:

• Come in spring or autumn. August is hot and many locals leave; December is lovely but the nativity streets are packed.
• Do the big-name streets early in the morning and spend the middle of the day in museums or a neighborhood like Sanita, Vomero or Chiaia.
• Stay a few nights. Day-trippers see the crowded version. People who sleep here see the city.

A few more things worth knowing

• Football is a religion. Napoli won Serie A in 2023 and again in 2025, and Diego Maradona is a local saint. Shrines to him turn up next to the ones for saints of the more official kind. Wearing another team's shirt here is a bad idea.
• The Campi Flegrei are restless. The volcanic area west of the city, around Pozzuoli, has had frequent small earthquakes since 2024. The Solfatara crater has been closed since 2017. It does not affect a normal visit to Naples, but check the news if you plan to visit Pozzuoli.
• Cash is less necessary than it was. Italian shops and restaurants must accept cards, and contactless is common, though a street-food counter may still prefer coins.
• Coffee is fast and cheap. You drink it standing at the bar. Some bars keep up the caffe sospeso custom, where you pay for an extra coffee for someone who cannot afford one.
• Getting here is easy. High-speed trains from Rome take about an hour (Rome to Naples), and boats leave from Molo Beverello for Capri, Ischia, Procida and Sorrento.

For what to do once you are there, start with our top 10 things to do in Naples, the free things to do in Naples and day trips from Naples.

photos, top to bottom, by: the pink sip, Daveness_98, Jessica Spiegel (and may not be used without permission), Schantzilla, dawvon, Argenberg, Jessica Spiegel (and may not be used without permission), feline_dacat, scalleja, Patrik Axelsson, Sami Keinänen