La Peninsula

My hometown of Naples, Italy celebrated its 2500th birthday in December 2025. 

Two and a half millennia are certainly a long legacy; here they are not just visible in museums, because Naples wears her history like skin, in its archaeological sites, ancient walls, medieval castles, baroque palaces and churches, but also in its songs, food, traditions, and unique language, born from Napoli's proudly multicultural essence. Visiting Naples is not like taking a trip to any ancient city; it's a transformative experience that starts with being welcomed by Neapolitans and experiencing our vibrant ways, where life's joys come first. 

What’s crucial to understanding Naples is that it was a modern city in ancient times, a place where opposites have met and blended for centuries. To this day, visitors find a city of conundrums, of paradoxes, where opposing forces collide. For decades, Naples had a bad reputation for danger and corruption, a narrative that Italian media reinforced for far too long, despite Milan, Rome, and Florence’s much higher crime rate.

Today, my city is finally experiencing an ontological revival; Naples is embracing its past while looking to the future. 

Here are 10 places to visit in Naples to comprehend some defining moments in the city’s long history. Note that this is far from being the ultimate touristic itinerary, because the spots chosen are not the main textbook sights; rather, I chose off-the-beaten-path places that may not be as famous... yet help us remember. 

1. Greek origins: Ipogeo dei Cristallini

Nearly 3,000 years ago, sailors from Greece landed on our Tyrrhenian shores. In the 8th century BC, they built Parthenope, the first embryon of Naples, in the place where, legend goes, the siren Parthenope died of a broken heart when ignored by Odysseus. The city of Parthenope expanded and in 424 BC, was re-founded as Neapolis (literally meaning “new city”). 

Neapolis was stratified across millennia, so there are not many sights left from its foundation, apart from the very Greek urban structure that’s still visible in the streets of the historical center and in the ancient city walls (you can see a segment in Piazza Bellini). One place that has endured, almost magically, is the Ipogeo dei Cristallini, an underground Greek necropolis still bearing signs of its original magnificence with its colorful paintings, located in Rione Sanità. 

2. Roman colony: Parco Archeologico di Posillipo

It bears saying that Neapolis was the Hellenistic metropolis of the west and maintained its Greek soul well throughout Rome’s dominion over the Italian peninsula. Even when Neapolis became a Roman colony, Greek remained the official language. Neapolis was a strategic asset for Rome’s maritime commerce; it also became an otium destination for rich Roman nobles to indulge in beauty and the arts. Roman ruins are spread across Naples; some go unnoticed, like an original column embedded in the outer wall of a building on Via San Biagio dei Librai that has stood for 2,000 years.

To me, the most impressive mementos of Roman times in Naples are within the multifaceted Archaeological Park of Posillipo – the hill’s name comes from the Greek Pausilypon, meaning “pause from pain”. Here you can still visit the imperial villa and Odeion theatre owned by Augustus and subsequent Roman emperors. In summer, you can snorkel in the Park of Gaiola and see ruins of underwater Roman villas. 

3. Swabians: The World’s First Public University

When the Western Roman Empire fell, foreigners ruled Naples for centuries. In 1130 AD, Southern Italy was unified by the Normans of the Altavilla dynasty and consolidated by their heirs, the German Hohenstaufens. The Altavillas built Castel dell’Ovo and Castel Capuano, two of Napoli’s oldest castles. This era’s most illustrious ruler was King Frederick II of Swabia. A patron of peace and cultural integration, he defied popes, maintained friendship with Arab sultans, and wrote a modern constitution. In 1224, he founded in Naples the world’s first public, state-run university complete with scholarships for textbooks and student housing. Today, the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II bears his name with 80,000 students. You can visit the various buildings in the historical centre and be inspired by the long history of the university. 

4. Angevin Domination: Sant’Eligio

After Frederick’s death in 1250, his loyalists battled the pope to maintain the kingdom unified, but the French took over in 1266. A symbol of this period is Piazza Mercato, so named because the Angevin built the square to host the markets; until then, the buzzing center of the city had always been Piazza San Gaetano, the main market for a millennium, since being the Roman forum and the Greek agorà at the time of Neapolis’s very foundation. The French conquerors built various edifices adjacent to Piazza Mercato, many of which still stand; a singular example is the church of Sant’Eligio (one of the few Gothic churches in Naples), constructed on the place where Frederick’s grandson Corradino was beheaded by the first Angevin king in an eternal horrific reminder. 

5. Neapolitan Humanism and Renaissance: Sant’Anna dei Lombardi

Naples once again became a vivid cultural hub, a cradle of secular Humanism, after the Spanish Aragonese dynasty gained sovereignty in 1442. Academies flourished; artists flocked to Naples and composed literary, artistic, and architectural works of art. The city thrived; the population skyrocketed from 30,000 to 150,000, meanwhile Rome counted barely 55,000 inhabitants. Naples reigned as the second most important harbor in all of the Mediterranean, behind Constantinople. While Naples may not have preserved as much Humanism and Renaissance architecture as Florence, the two cities were friends; many Tuscan artists left their mark in the 1500s. A testament to Napolitano Renaissance art is the monumental Church of Sant’Anna dei Lombardi, any visitor’s must-see— don’t miss the splendid side chapels and the old sacristy. 

6. Baroque: Donnaregina & Albergo dei Poveri

Naples, with its hedonism, its obsession for abundance and beauty, found in Baroque its truest form of art. The city’s very structure was urbanizing from the 1600s onwards, with the Spanish viceroys embracing grandeur. Squares were enlarged to host colossal obelisks and church interiors were aggrandized with gold, stuccoes, and colorful marbles. Here in Naples, we say we “don’t know half measures”; elegance gave way to pomposity, to opulence. Most churches you enter in Naples underwent a Baroque makeover during this century. One particularly worth seeing is the splendid Chiesa di Santa Maria Donnaregina Nuova, grandiose beyond reason. 

It is no mere coincidence that San Gennaro, the Saint Patron that Neapolitans revere almost heretically, owes his name to Ianus, the two-faced pagan god of crossroads, of entrances and exits, of beginnings and endings, of opposites. To bridge the gap between rich and poor, King Charles of Bourbon constructed the Real Albergo dei Poveri in 1749, the royal house of the poor, where the destitute could be housed, fed, and trained in a trade of their choosing. It bears saying that Charles made the house of the poor to be bigger than his own royal palace.

7. Enlightenment and Republic: Museo Filangieri

Historically, Naples produced intellectuals across all ages of reason, and the 1700s were no different. You’ve heard of the French Enlightened writers who philosophically revolutionized Europe from Paris, but you may not know that Naples had its own circle of Enlightened thinkers inspiring our kingdom and beyond – all the way to America. One of these philosophers was a noble jurist, Gaetano Filangieri, who counseled the king and wrote extensive treatises advising sovereign states to operate through laws dictated by reason instead of tradition. Filangieri believed in a revolutionary necessity: good laws should ultimately lead to the nation’s happiness. Filangieri shared correspondence with avid admirer Benjamin Franklin; many of their letters are on display at the Museo Gaetano Filangieri, alongside Neapolitan Nativity scenes, paintings, sculptures, and a vast library. 

8. Post-Unification: Ospedale delle Bambole

In 1861, the Savoy monarchs of Piedmont annexed Naples and Sicily, transferred the treasury to Turin, and packed factories to the north. Joblessness defined the region and the desperate countryside turned to brigandry. While Naples remained a global commerce city, Italy’s unification struck dire growing pains. 

A metaphor for the resilience of Neapolitans, ever the lovers of broken things, is a private workshop called Ospedale delle Bambole. For millennia, Naples has been the homeland of pretty adornments, artisanal puppets, and Nativity scenes, but also for the art of making do. In 1895, the royal scenographer Luigi Grassi opened up a workshop where he would build his splendid sets, masks, puppets… and where Neapolitans of all ages would bring their own dolls to be repaired, earning him the title of doctor and his workshop the name of the “dolls hospital”. The Ospedale delle Bambole still operates today and has since “cured” 20 million dolls. It’s a hidden gem of Neapolitan entrepreneurship in the city centre, visited as a true museum, whether or not you’re in a toy-emergency.

9. 1900s: Funicolare 

Stretched out between the sea and three hills, and enclosed by Mount Vesuvius to the south, Naples is a vertical city. In the city centre, you can look up and see the Vomero hill, crowned by the Sant’Elmo castle and adjacent San Martino charterhouse perched on the hilltop, dominating the city from 250 metres above sea level. Long-ago Neapolitans built winding stairways called pedamentine, connecting the hills. To this day, Naples has over 200 stairways, pedestrian pathways to explore the city away from traffic. The iconic 700-year-old Pedamentina San Martino traverses Naples in only 414 mellow steps, heading downhill from the Castel Sant’Elmo and Certosa di San Martino to the city center. 

Alongside the Second Industrial Revolution in 1889, Naples inaugurated its first funicular connecting Chiaia with Vomero, which is still functioning today, along with 3 other funicular routes: Funicolare di Montesanto (inaugurated in 1891), Funicolare Centrale (1928), and Funicolare di Mergellina (1931). Funicolars are particularly beloved of Neapolitans and before the first one ever opened in the city, they had already earned their spot in Neapolitan pop culture through an iconic song titled “Funiculì Funiculà” written in 1880 about the cable car leading up to Mount Vesuvius. 

10. 2000s: Street Art

In a place so prone to poetry, art has thrived in Naples for over two millennia. Street art may be the essence of Naples in the 21st century, permeating and adorning hundreds of streets in the city. Both institutional or community-driven art installations have become the basis for tourist pilgrimage routes, from the various iconic depictions of soccer deity Maradona to those of actual patron saint San Gennaro. One of the most impressive works of street art is the product of a community-led initiative called Vicolo della Cultura, alley of culture. A group of local volunteers repurposed spaces in various alleys (Vicoletto Donnaregina, Vico Buongiorno, Via Montesilvano), painting the walls vibrant colors and adorning them with the faces and words of great Neapolitan artists. This association has also installed modern votive niches of tiny libraries where everyone can take or leave a book for free. Art may just save us, and no people have more room for art than Naples. 

In 2026, Naples can finally say that it’s a modern city in modern times, on par with many of its much younger European cousins. Yet, Napoli’s history – all 2500 years of it! – makes all the difference, and it’s one worth interrogating.