Naples in five days

💡Good pizza costs four euros and comes in two kinds

Margherita or marinara: that's the whole menu in the old pizzerias, and it's enough. If the menu has thirty options and photographs, you're in the tourist one. You eat in twenty minutes and you don't book.

💡Get to Pompeii on the local train, not on a tour

The Circumvesuviana leaves Naples every half hour and the ticket costs three euros. It's an old train and it's packed: wear your bag on your front and keep your phone out of sight.

💡Pompeii and Vesuvius: first thing, or not at all

There isn't a single tree in the ruins and August goes past forty degrees. Get in at opening, carry two litres of water each and a hat, and leave the museum for the afternoon, where there's air conditioning.

💡Naples isn't dangerous, it's intense

The traffic ignores even zebra crossings: you cross at a steady walk and the scooters go round you. What there is, is pickpockets in the centre and on the train, so bag on your front and that's that.

💡Coffee is drunk standing, at the counter, in one go

Sitting at a table costs three times as much for the same coffee. You order, you pay, you drink it in twenty seconds and you leave. And here a coffee is always an espresso: if you want anything else, say so.