Originally Posted by
Wenckebach
Wow, I am surprised no one has said this yet but IMO Naples is not the greatest city. Instead of Naples, why not do Sorrento? You could take the high speed train from Rome to Naples then get a car across from the station (that's what I did) and drive to Sorrento. The hotels are stunning - they are perched on cliffs just above the water. Still plenty of Napolitan pizza in this area. It has the almalfi feel to it, without going quite so far. I would definitely consider spending 3 days in Sorrento as an alternative. Much more romantic and picturesque.
I do share with you the belief that Sorrento is very beautiful, but certainly not more than that. You can "see" the nice parts of it in a couple of hours (provided you find a place to park your car), take selfies, and basta. As far as antiquities are concerned, one can only mention the hordes of Miss Marple lookalikes that populate the city from April to October (they're at their home in England during the off-season) and other that a pizza al metro at its original pizzeria in Vicco Equense ("Pizza a Metro - l'Università della pizza", previously known as Gigino's, the "discoverer" of the pizza al metro), that's all that you can talk about in terms of good neapolitan food. Not strange that the only thing that one thinks of nowadays when mentioning Sorrento is the song "Torna a Surriento", either in Italian sung by a gondoliers in Venice (?!) or, usually, in its Elvis version, "Surrender".
No wonder that Goethe wrote "See Naples and then die" and not "See Sorrento and then die". Since spending a couple of months there for work in the mid-80s I've visited Naples about 15 times, and every single one I discover (or re-discover) yet another reason to come back. Yes, Naples is dirty, loud and there is some petty criminality, still I list it among
my 5 most interesting cities in the world (Rome is also part of the list). If I have some time later on I'll send a new post with some must-see places in these two cities that are off the beaten path.