See Naples and Live

I spent last weekend in Italy with friends. The trip was great fun, and I expect we will return once again next year.

Our destination was the excellent Lido Cerullo, on the beach near the ruins of Paestum. On the way, our coach skirted Naples, the sight of which always takes me straight back to a visit I made there in the summer of 1990. The place made a big impression on me. Being an idealistic teenager, I found its alien ways highly alluring. Grimy, sultry and anarchic, it seemed the opposite of much I'd grown up with in southern England.

But despite a couple of opportunities and trips to the south of Italy, I've been back to Naples itself only once in the intervening 22 years. Like a lot of other people, Naples just hasn't seemed like the right place to take a young family or to head for a romantic weekend. Understandable I guess, but it's a shame more of us don't visit the place, despite all the rave reviews it gets in many travel guides.

Naples has two great attributes for the visitor. Firstly it is hugely atmospheric and exciting. The backstreets are the stuff of Italian cliché - ancient, claustrophobic, chaotic, populated by noisy extraverts fed on the world's best pizza. But you wont find anything comparable in Rome, Milan, Florence or Venice. This is unmistakably the South. Culturally you feel closer to Tangiers than Turin.

Secondly, Naples is simply stunning. They used to say "See Naples and Die" because the city was such a sight to behold. It remains so. Climb up the hill to get a view of the city, the vast bay and looming Vesuvius. The photo to the left, which I took on that trip in 1990, doesn't do it justice.

No other major European city offers your eyes a more awe-inspiring combination of historic urban sprawl and natural beauty. Barcelona doesn't come close, Marseille (another under-rated and under-visited city) is the next best I've been to.

So my recommendation is to take sensible precautions (yes, there is no doubt petty crime to rival any city in Europe) and dive into Naples. It's an experience you won't forget.