Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
palace. These glorious living quarters were built for the Spanish royalty in 1600;
later the Bourbon kings and queens ordered their expansion. It's easy to imagine
the extravagant goings-on under the ornate frescoes. The best rooms are the Court
Theatre, with its ornate ceiling, the Ambassadors' Hall, the Palatine Chapel, and
the library with its million-plus volumes.
Adjacent to the Palazzo Reale is the extraordinary
Teatro di San Carlo
55
(Via
San Carlo, 101-103;
%
081-7972111; www.teatrosancarlo.it; guided tour
€
2.50;
tours at 2, 2:30, 3, and 3:30pm).
This is Europe's oldest working theater, built in
1737 over a period of just 8 months. Tickets start around
75 during the opera
season, and are available online or at the box office beside the main entrance. In
Italy, the San Carlo season is second in fame only to La Scala in Milan, and its
curators are working to bring back the famous 18th-century comic operas (Opera
Buffa). If you can't make it for a performance, don't miss the guided tours.
Sights from Piazza Trieste e Trento to the Waterfront
Just across the street from Teatro di San Carlo are the adjoining squares of
Piazza
Trieste e Trento,
with its hectic traffic circle and buzzing cafes, and the
Piazza
del Plebiscito.
From the
Bar del Professore
on the Piazza Trieste e Trento, you
can access a slightly hidden underpass leading to the strange
Napoli nella
Raccolta de Mura
(free admission; 9am-7pm),
a funky underground museum cel-
ebrating the golden age of Neapolitan music. It's worth a peek, if just for a few
minutes. The adjacent Piazza del Plebiscito is one of Naples's most recognizable
squares; its Roman Pantheon knock-off church of
San Francesco di Paola
is
embraced by two colonnades of Doric columns. Built in 1817 by King Ferdinand
to celebrate Naples's escape from French rule, the church lacks the warmth of
other city-center churches. This one is purely neoclassical, but the Neapolitans
don't seem to like it—which is not surprising. The church is much more impres-
sive from the outside, so if you're pressed for time, skip the inside.
The piazza, a major hub for Neapolitan celebrations, outdoor concerts, and
political rallies, is another matter. It's hard to imagine now, but this square used
to be nothing more than a giant parking lot until the city closed it to traffic in
1994 to welcome the G8 conference. From this square, you can head down to the
main ferry port or cross over to the museums of Castel Nuovo and Palazzo Reale.
The other streets around this area comprise Naples's main shopping district
(p. 504). The Via Toledo (officially called, but rarely signposted as, Via Roma),
heading north from the port, is full of upper- and midrange stores. But better
than that is the afternoon “street theater” here, when, starting around 5pm, it
seems that every Neapolitan is out for an early-evening
passeggiata
—a parade of
color and emotion. The area is tops for people-watching. Head toward the Piazza
del Plebiscito and you can reach the lovely Via Chiaia, a pedestrian zone that
attracts as many street performers as window-shoppers. Via Chiaia feeds into the
designer shops around Piazza dei Martiri (see “Shopping,” below).
Borgo Marinaro & the Waterfront
You are perfectly poised in this waterfront district to stroll past the grand hotels
along busy Via Partenope and down to the
Castel dell'Ovo
(Via Partenope;
%
081-2464111 or 081-7640590; free admission; Mon-Fri 9am-6pm, weekends
9am-1pm).
Inside the castle itself there isn't much to see except the view—if you
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