Tuesday 5 November 2024

We booked a two hour Walking Food Tour today, which went into the old Spanish and Greek quarters, which is where the commercial, tourist and restaurant strips are. All in all, it was a good and informative tour and we tasted all the traditional street foods, including fried pizza, pizza Margherita, rum baba and some nice antipasto.

Surprisingly, the streets were quite busy.

Then, not having walked far enough on cobbled streets, we took the funiculo up the top of the hill to look at the view over Naples. Very impressive. So too was the nice cliff top bar for a refreshing beverage. The Metro home was seamless. Full of uni students, as is the town.

Now for Naples. It wouldn’t be fair to judge Melbourne on a single visit to Fitzroy Street in St Kilda, but we saw a fair bit of central Naples and in Flashy’s words “a total shit hole.”

The streets are still littered with cigarette butts, food scraps and litter of all sorts. Graffiti graces almost every second building and the surly looking residents don’t seem to give a fig or have any civic pride. Our guide was not surprised that this opinion of Naples still persists today among visitors.

Naples, you’re a disgrace.

Typical Naples street scene

Mario, our guide. The Italians love their black trackies.

In comparison, the street food is clean and tasty.

The old town.

The beautiful entrance to the Metro

Even the lovely Garibaldi station has been tagged.

Napoli, Queen of the south!