DK Travel : Naples & the Amalfi Coast

From one perspective, this area is an anomaly, at once one of the earth’s most beautiful and yet most accursed places. It has been the choice of the great and wealthy as their playground, while also being the scene of some of the greatest natural disasters and the grittiest human misery. Perhaps these irreconcilable twists of fate are at the root of the Neapolitans’ famously optimistic cynicism. The city of Naples itself is a vibrant urban setting, almost non-European in its intensity, while the beauty of the surrounding coast has been known to make grown men weep.

Salerno

Renowned in medieval times for its medical school, this city has been almost entirely ignored by tourism. All that may change, however, now that the historic centre has undergone a restoration. The Romanesque Duomo and its treasures are a reminder that Salerno was the capital of southern Italy in the 11th century.
Salvatore Gargiulo, Sorrento

Examples of Sorrentine intarsia (marquetry) are to be seen all over town, but this workshop turns out top-quality products at reasonable prices. The best items are the music boxes.
Salvatore, Ravello

A short walk out of town, this restaurant enjoys a fine panorama and turns out delicious food. Try cuttlefish with artichokes or risotto of barley with mushrooms and smoked mozzarella.
San Domenico Maggiore

Highlights at this 13th-century church include frescoes by Pietro Cavallini.
San Francesco di Paola

A rarity in Naples, this NeoClassical structure imitates the Pantheon, Rome’s great pagan temple to the gods built in the 2nd century AD. Inside and out the basilica is austere, with the exception of the polychrome marble Baroque altar.
San Francesco di Paola

The impetus to build this imitation Pantheon came from the Napoleonic king Joachim Murat (1808–15). Completed under the reinstated Bourbon dynasty, the idea was to do away with the chaotic jumble around the palace by recreating a version of the ancient Roman temple to the gods and setting it off with arcades echoing those of St Peter’s. It dominates a semicircular piazza with the Palazzo Reale at the opposite end.
San Gaudioso Catacombs

This labyrinth of tunnels was built by the Romans for use as cisterns. It evolved into catacombs in the 5th century, when St Gaudiosus, a North African bishop and hermit, was interred here. You can see the remains of fresco and mosaic decorations.
San Gennaro

On the first Sunday in May is the first of a thrice-yearly event during which the blood of Naples’ patron saint – who has seen the city through earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and football championships – flows again. The miracle is received with a hysteria seldom seen in this day and age – a manifestation of age-old faith that involves flower-bedecked processions of the saint’s effigy through the old quarter.
San Gennaro Catacombs

Burials here date as far back as the 2nd century and the site was originally used by pagans as well as Christians. In the 5th century, the body of San Gennaro, Naples’ patron saint, was brought here, and the place became an important pilgrimage site. Frescoes and mosaics on the two levels of this vast layout attest to its importance over the centuries.
San Giovanni

The feast day of St John the Baptist also sometimes sees his blood boil – a phial of it is ensconced in the church of San Gregorio Armeno. Otherwise, the saint is traditionally remembered in charmingly pagan ways, linked to the summer solstice: night bathing, magicians and the gathering of walnuts to make nocino , a liqueur prepared for late autumn.

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