Naples, Italy

Day 1

• Spaccanapoli and the old town

  It is not one street but the lower decumanus of the Greco-Roman city, still straight after two and a half thousand years: you walk it free in 30 minutes, from via Toledo to Forcella, and it is how you grasp that the old centre still follows the ancient plan. Watch the name: on maps the same street changes seven times (Benedetto Croce, San Biagio dei Librai, Vicaria Vecchia) and anyone typing 'Spaccanapoli' into a sat nav will not find it.

• Cathedral and Chapel of San Gennaro

  Entry to the cathedral is free, and it is three churches in one: the Gothic nave, the early Christian basilica of Santa Restituta and the 4th-century baptistery with its mosaics. The chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro is separate and has a ticketed museum, open every day 09:30-18:00 with last entry at 17:00 and the audio guide included; there are also combined tickets with the Filangieri museum or with Sant'Anna dei Lombardi. The liquefaction miracle is not a daily event: it happens three times a year (19 September, the Saturday before the first Sunday of May and 16 December) and on those days the cathedral is full of Neapolitans, not tourists.

• Castel dell'Ovo and Borgo Marinari

  The castle on the islet of Megaride, where legend has the siren Parthenope come ashore, belongs to the city and entry is free: you climb onto the terraces and look at the bay with Vesuvius opposite. The hours are short and change, and it closes for events. At its foot the Borgo Marinari has expensive waterside restaurants; the pedestrian seafront on via Partenope is free and is where Neapolitans walk.

Day 2

• Galleria Umberto I

  Built between 1887 and 1890 in the redevelopment that followed the 1884 cholera epidemic, with a 57-metre iron-and-glass dome and a mosaic floor of the zodiac. It is crossed free at any hour and is a public passage between via Toledo and the San Carlo opera house. It is the twin of Milan's but taller, and unlike that one it has almost no shops open: you look up, not into windows.

• Maschio Angioino (Castel Nuovo)

  The castle on the harbour is municipal and ticketed; inside is the Civic Museum with the Palatine Chapel and the Barons' Hall. It opens Monday to Saturday 09:00-18:00 with last entry at 17:30 and closes on Sunday, which is the day most people turn up outside it. A practical detail: online sales are suspended and tickets are sold only at the castle box office, by card. What is worth seeing is the white marble triumphal arch wedged between the two lead-roofed towers: it was made in the 15th century for the entry of Alfonso of Aragon and is the only Renaissance piece in a medieval castle. It stands beside the Beverello pier: anyone taking the hydrofoils to the islands walks past it.

• Sansevero Chapel (Veiled Christ)

  Booking is compulsory and the daily places are capped: tickets are released 60 days ahead and a second batch two days before, with the first slot at 9:00. Turning up without one is wasted time. The ticket costs 12 € full, 8 € for ages 18 to 26, 6 € for 10 to 17 and nothing under 9, and it opens every day 09:00-19:00, closed on Tuesday, with last entry half an hour before. It also covers the underground cavea with the two 18th-century anatomical machines, which almost nobody expects and which strike people harder than the veiled Christ. The veil, in any case, is a single block of marble: it is not a cloth laid over the top.

Day 1

• Napoli Sotterranea✦ hidden gem

  Beneath the lanes you go down 136 steps to about 40 metres, into the Greco-Roman aqueduct that later became an air-raid shelter: it is seen only on a guided tour at fixed times, in Italian and English at 10:00, 12:00, 14:00, 16:00 and 18:00, and groups of fewer than ten need no booking at standard times. One widely repeated claim needs correcting: the spaces are mostly wide, and the narrow tunnel, about fifty centimetres across and walked with a candle, is an optional stretch, not a compulsory one. Anyone claustrophobic skips it and waits for the group. It is not, however, accessible to anyone with mobility problems.

• San Gregorio Armeno✦ hidden gem

  The street of the nativity-figure workshops, where the craftsmen work all year and not only in December: you walk through free and look in while they model. It is 5 minutes on foot from Spaccanapoli and you end up there anyway, because it cuts across the decumanus. The figurines of famous people (footballers, politicians, singers) are a real tradition and not a gimmick: they change every year with the news. In December the street becomes impassable, with queues of people standing still: anyone who wants to see the craftsmen working goes in spring or autumn.

• Spanish Quarters and the Maradona mural✦ hidden gem

  The grid of climbing alleys built in the 16th century to quarter Spanish troops, and a dense working-class quarter ever since: streets three metres wide, washing lines, scooters. The Maradona mural on largo Maradona dates from 1990, repainted and enlarged several times, and has become a place of pilgrimage with flowers and relics. It is walked by day without trouble; it is a lived-in neighbourhood, so the courtesy of entering someone's home applies.

Day 2

• Fontanelle Cemetery✦ hidden gem

  An ossuary in a tufa quarry with thousands of skulls and bones stacked up, tied to the cult of the 'anime pezzentelle': Neapolitans adopted an anonymous skull, cleaned it and prayed for it in exchange for favours. The Church banned the practice in 1969, but the traces are still there: flowers, notes, glass cases. Entry is free and it is in the Sanità district, off the tourist routes: 20 minutes on foot from the centre, or by bus.

• Cuoppo and street fried food✦ hidden gem

  The cuoppo is the paper cone of fried food bought at the friggitorie and eaten walking: potato croquettes, fried pasta cakes, seaweed fritters, or the seafood version with anchovies and squid. It costs a few euros and is the cheapest meal in the city. Fried pizza is its own dish (pizza dough stuffed with ricotta, pork scratchings and provola and fried whole) and it came out of the post-war years, when flour was available and firing an oven was not.

Day 1

• Neapolitan pizza

  The art of the Neapolitan pizzaiuolo has been UNESCO intangible heritage since 2017, and the specification is precise: a dough of flour, water, salt and yeast only, a long rise, and baking in a wood oven at around 485 degrees for sixty to ninety seconds. Hence the tall rim and the soft centre, which is not cut into wedges but folded. The historic pizzerias take no bookings and you queue in the street with a number: that is normal, and the queue moves.

• Sfogliatella and babà

  The sfogliatella exists in two versions that are different pastries: the riccia, in crisp layered pastry, and the frolla, smooth and soft. The filling is the same (semolina, ricotta, candied peel, cinnamon), but the result changes completely. They are eaten warm, straight from the oven, and good bars bring them out in batches. The babà is soaked in rum after baking and must stay spongy: dry or dripping, either way it is wrong.

• Neapolitan coffee

  It is drunk at the bar, in a hot cup, in two sips. The detail that catches outsiders: in many bars it arrives already sweetened, because it is assumed that is how you want it. If you want it without sugar, say so when ordering, not afterwards. It costs less than in the north and is shorter and denser. The caffè sospeso, paid for a stranger who will come later, genuinely exists in some old bars, but it is not a service: it is something offered, not requested.

Day 2

• Cuoppo and street fried food✦ hidden gem

  The cuoppo is the paper cone of fried food bought at the friggitorie and eaten walking: potato croquettes, fried pasta cakes, seaweed fritters, or the seafood version with anchovies and squid. It costs a few euros and is the cheapest meal in the city. Fried pizza is its own dish (pizza dough stuffed with ricotta, pork scratchings and provola and fried whole) and it came out of the post-war years, when flour was available and firing an oven was not.

• San Gregorio Armeno✦ hidden gem

  The street of the nativity-figure workshops, where the craftsmen work all year and not only in December: you walk through free and look in while they model. It is 5 minutes on foot from Spaccanapoli and you end up there anyway, because it cuts across the decumanus. The figurines of famous people (footballers, politicians, singers) are a real tradition and not a gimmick: they change every year with the news. In December the street becomes impassable, with queues of people standing still: anyone who wants to see the craftsmen working goes in spring or autumn.