By the end of my 2-day stay in Naples, my throat ached due to the pollution. The roads of the inner city, being too narrow for cars, were filled with noxious motorbikes. Being the local equivalent of the USA's mini-van, many of these tiny motorcycles were ridden by families of four. A little boy pretending to drive in the front, with his father sitting behind him actually steering. The mom took the rear, and a young girl was pressed in between her parents.
The apartments, precariously stacked one on top of the other, were designed by sadistic architects excited about the possibility of an earthquake. Naples is as close to the volcano Vesuvius as the ancient Roman town of Pompeii, and so is prone to tremors and very-occasional eruptions.
Naples was my favorite city of Italy.
Because of laws that required all building to remain within the city walls, Naples is layered. At the base are ancient Greek ruins, above these Roman homes, then early Christian structures, and so on.
My tour guide stopped in front of a graffiti covered garage door, no different from the many other doors we'd passed. She pulled open the door, and we entered a passageway of never ending stairs. At the base lay an ancient Greek aquaduct.
Like the rest of Naples, this underground network had been used by many cultures. In WWII, the portions of the aquaduct lying under churches were used as bomb-shelters -- the Italians mistakenly assumed that the Nazis would not bomb churches. One room had been bizarrely decorated to remind visitors of the threat of a biological weapon.
On the second leg of the tour, our guide told us about a Roman theater which was, according to some texts, supposed to lie beneath the city. 20 years ago, archeologists had narrowed down the area and began knocking on doors of residents. One of the homes had a basement which was being used as a wine cellar. This was uncommon for this neighborhood, so some archeologists took a closer look. They found that one of the walls was shaped like an arch, again an uncommon design.
Knocking this down, they found the dressing room of the ancient theater.
The main theater is still being excavated.
This is what I loved so much about Naples. On the surface, the city was dirty and unsafe. Digging deeper, one could find ancient and modern treasures.