Naples

Naples is not for the faint-hearted. The traffic ignores physics. The streets are loud, narrow, and strung with laundry. Vesuvius looms over everything like a reminder that nothing here is permanent. And yet — this is the city that invented pizza, that holds Caravaggio masterpieces in churches you can enter for free, that treats every meal like a celebration and every celebration like a reason to eat more.

The Spaccanapoli — the street that splits the old town — is a sensory corridor of fried food stalls, Baroque churches, and shops selling nativity figurines alongside Maradona memorabilia. The Museo Archeologico holds treasures from Pompeii and Herculaneum that will rewrite your understanding of the ancient world. Below the city, the Napoli Sotterranea reveals Greek and Roman tunnels carved from tufa. Eat a margherita at Da Michele or Sorbillo — the debate over which is better has lasted generations and will never be resolved.

When to go: April through June or September through October. The May festival of San Gennaro brings the city to its most fervent.