Centro Storico

A look around

What you’ll be living next to. Swipe through.

1/6

Where it sits

The circle is Centro Storico and roughly a 10-minute walk around it.

How far is everything?

From the middle of this area to the city's headline sights — pick your own on the city page and these become your list.

• The Quartieri & the Maradona mural14 min walk1.2 km
• A Naples night out15 min walk1.2 km
• Castel Nuovo16 min walk1.4 km
• Castel Sant'Elmo & the view20 min walk1.7 km
• Piazza del Plebiscito & Galleria Umberto21 min walk1.7 km
• Castel dell'Ovo & the Lungomare8 min taxi2.5 km
• Mergellina & Posillipo12 min taxi4.0 km
• Mergellina & Posillipo (beach)13 min taxi4.5 km

On your doorstep

What you’re living next to if you stay here.

• 1.Neapolitan pizza — Pizza was invented here, and Naples still makes the best on earth — a blistered, chewy, wood-fired disc of the simplest ingredients (a Margherita, or a Marinara with no cheese at all), for a few euros at a legendary pizzeria. Join the queue at a classic like Da Michele or Sorbillo; a genuine, cheap, transcendent bucket-list meal.
• 2.Spaccanapoli & the old town — The arrow-straight ancient street that 'splits Naples' in two, plunging through the heart of the old town — a canyon of tottering palazzi, Baroque churches, shrines, market stalls and pizzerias, roaring with life. The essence of the city; just wander it and the tangle of lanes around it, and let the chaos and beauty wash over you.
• 3.The Archaeological Museum — One of the world's greatest collections of antiquities — the finest treasures from Pompeii and Herculaneum (mosaics, frescoes, the famous 'Secret Cabinet' of erotic art), and colossal Roman sculptures like the Farnese Hercules. Essential context for the ruins; visit it before Pompeii, and the buried cities come alive.
• 4.The Cappella Sansevero — A small Baroque chapel hiding one of the most astonishing sculptures ever made — the 'Veiled Christ', carved from a single block of marble so that a diaphanous shroud seems to lie over the body, impossibly lifelike. Jaw-dropping, and surrounded by other marble marvels and macabre 'anatomical machines'; book ahead, it's tiny.
• 6.Naples Underground — Beneath the chaotic streets lies a hidden Naples — a labyrinth of ancient Greek and Roman aqueducts, cisterns and tunnels (used as air-raid shelters in the war), reached down 40 metres by candlelight. Atmospheric and fascinating; a guided tour through the eerie, echoing city under the city is one of Naples's most memorable experiences.
• 10.San Gregorio Armeno — The famous 'Christmas Alley' — a narrow old-town lane crammed year-round with workshops making the elaborate Neapolitan nativity figures (presepi), from shepherds and angels to satirical caricatures of footballers and politicians. Wonderfully atmospheric and unique to Naples; wander the stalls and watch the artisans at work.
• 11.The Duomo & San Gennaro — Naples Cathedral, home to the fervently venerated San Gennaro, the city's patron — a chapel of dazzling Baroque treasures holds a vial of his blood, which the faithful gather to watch miraculously liquefy three times a year. A grand, gilded church at the heart of Neapolitan devotion; step in for the art and the atmosphere of faith.
• 12.Sfogliatella & Neapolitan coffee — Beyond pizza, Naples is a city of sweet and caffeinated pleasures — the sfogliatella (a crisp, shell-shaped pastry oozing sweet ricotta), the rum-soaked babà, and a tiny, intense espresso, taken standing at the bar. Do a pastry crawl of the old town, and drink your coffee the Neapolitan way; small, strong and often already sugared.