An editorial guide to Naples, the most under-visited major Italian city. The 535-year capital of an independent kingdom, the Bourbon-era cultural infrastructure, the Spaccanapoli centro storico, the underground city, the pizza, the day-trips. Where to stay and what to skip.

The smallest, quietest, and least-visited of the three Gulf of Naples islands — Marina Corricella in its hundred colours, the Terra Murata citadel, the 2022 Italian Capital of Culture. Where to stay, when to come, what most visitors miss.

The largest and most liveable of the Gulf of Naples islands — thermal springs, William Walton gardens, the Aragonese Castle on its causeway, Sant Angelo, Monte Epomeo, and the six-commune geography that determines which base suits which visitor.

A long editorial guide to Capri — the Gulf of Naples island of Augustus and Tiberius, the Piazzetta and the Blue Grotto, Villa Jovis and the Faraglioni, Anacapri and Monte Solaro. How to get there, what to skip, when to go.

Paestum — the Greek colony of Poseidonia founded c.600 BC on the southern Campanian coast. Three Doric temples better-preserved than anything standing in Greece itself; the Tomb of the Diver, the only surviving Greek painted wall-painting from the Classical period; and the Cilento National Park stretching south.

Herculaneum — the smaller, better-preserved, quieter twin of Pompeii. 20 metres below the modern town of Ercolano, preserved by pyroclastic flows that carbonised wood and fabric rather than destroying them. The Villa of the Papyri scroll library being digitally read by the Vesuvius Challenge in 2024.

Pompeii — the single best-preserved ancient city in the world, buried by Mount Vesuvius on a morning in autumn 79 AD, partially excavating since 1748, still 40% unexcavated. The Forum with Vesuvius behind it, the plaster casts of the victims, the Villa of the Mysteries Dionysiac fresco, the Amphitheatre (oldest stone Roman), the House of the Vettii reopened 2023.

Ravello, the clifftop town 365m above the Amalfi Coast where Wagner sketched Parsifal, Villa Cimbrones Terrazza dellInfinito looks out over a 350m drop, the oldest outdoor music festival on the coast has run since 1953, and Gore Vidal lived for 34 years. Villa Rufolo, Villa Cimbrone, the Duomos 1272 pulpit, and the Ravello Festival.

Positano, the cliff-hanging village on the Amalfi Coast that John Steinbeck effectively launched to international tourism in 1953. A Byzantine Madonna in a majolica-domed church, a Roman villa buried under it, the Li Galli islands of the sirens offshore, and the Sentiero degli Dei path of the gods overhead.

Amalfi, the capital of a medieval Mediterranean maritime republic that once had 80,000 residents; now a town of 4,900 with the single most architecturally layered cathedral complex in southern Italy, the 1343 storm that ended the republic, the Chiostro del Paradiso, the Paper Museum, and scialatielli at La Caravella.