Let’s get this out of the way from the beginning, to get it out of the way.

Naples is the place where pizza was born and perfected to the point of monomania. The great port of the Mediterranean, gateway of the East to the West and bridge of Africa to Europe. Here dominate the last works of Caravaggio’s life if you remember Young Pope, here is where Kamorra plays at home if you return to The Godfather every now and then.

Wonder what to do in Naples ?

But first, before and above all else, Naples is a city forever sealed by the seven-year passage of a tiny Argentine who arrived in the capital of Campania in 1984, Diego Armando Maradona. Even now, 3.5 years after his death, the city still belongs to him in a way that is cultish, folkloric, almost metaphysical.

For Neapolitans, Maradona is pride and memory, their (but not his) clean forehead and puffed-up chest against the arrogant Italian north. He is a tourist product: a badge, a magnet, a bauble, a statuette. It is art: poster, stencil, graffiti. It is marketing: a photo on the menu, a likeness in the window, an idea and a solution for four decades for every baffled graphic designer in the Italian South. It is still an industry today, a business that easily but preciously rakes in euros. There’s Bar Nilo with its mini iconostasis (where every photo you take corresponds to an espresso you have to order) and Largo Maradona, the square at the end of the hill in the Spanish Quarter – the instagram temple where devotees from all over the planet worship under the huge mural of Diegito. It’s a backdrop to selfies, inspiration and justification, past grandeur. It is aspirin and cocaine, omnipotence and decadence. It’s two championships and a Uefa Cup, the David who defeated the Goliaths and, as legend has it, divided the city at the 1990 World Cup when he played his native Argentina against Italy and the Neapolitans didn’t know who to support. He is a ghost but he is also the real – despite San Gennaro – patron of the city, he is its liberator. He is a religion but he is also God.

Also, it’s one thing to say it, write it or (having the least possible connection to the ball) imagine it all. It’s another thing to see it, to live it, even for a few 24 hours, walking up and down the hills and shuffling your ankles through the cobbled streets of the historic centre. In Italy’s third largest city (with a population of just under 1 million including its surroundings), where Maradona’s figure is everywhere. I can’t imagine which other 20th century personality has been so closely associated with a place, who else has been so influential in the daily lives of people who felt like second-class citizens until his arrival.

And perhaps they still do. Naples has nothing in common with the North, with the elegance of Milan or the refinement of Florence. It is by no means a “museum city” like eternal Rome. But it is certainly less boring than all of them. It’s a dirty, loud, vibrant city. Kind of like putting Athens (or Piraeus), Barcelona and Cairo in a blender.

Naples, not unscathed by the hyper-tourism with lockboxes here too bearing witness to the onslaught of Airbnb, remains accessible. Prices have not gone out of line. You’ll stay in the centre for 80-120 euros a night, eat well for less than 25-30 euros, coffee at 1.20 (with baristas scooping up tourists, licking the cup of espresso around the perimeter with a spoon for maximum enjoyment). And, of course, you can spritz all day, walking around with Aperol or Campari in plastic in hand-even at 2.5-3 euros a small glass.

On first contact with the main street of Via Toledo, especially if it’s a weekend, you’re flirting with agoraphobic shock. Hundreds of Neapolitans with “puff pastry” in their hands have come out for a stroll or shopping in the Galleria Umberto behind the imposing San Carlo theatre. And they become thousands if you add the tourists who one look at Google maps on their screens and one at their backpacks and pockets if anything is missing. It’s hard for Naples to shed the “dangerous city” stigma, the dark semi-lit alleys of the historic centre don’t help, but it doesn’t follow that one needs to be any more or less careful than the other destinations that pretend to be carefree tourists.

The current narrative is that even the mafia has adapted to the 21st century tourist condition and doesn’t want to scare tourists by literally targeting their wallets. As Roberto Saviano pointed out in a disarming and deeply penetrating way in his 2006 book Gomorra (published by Pataki in Greek), the Camorra syndicate – the famous ‘System’ – takes care to control legal activities in the area and now conducts most of its business outside Italy. Clear proof that nowadays even organised crime has become globalised. Camorra, of course, controls the port of Naples, from which the landing of Chinese goods in 21st century Europe took place. “1.6 million tons of goods are recorded daily and another 1 million pass through without a trace,” wrote Saviano, who described in such detail the money routes and the regime of terror imposed by the Mafia in the region that he has been on the bounty for almost two decades, moving around under permanent police guard, having even lived under a false identity for a time in the United States.

What to do in Naples?

Experience it as an “early Christian” by making the tour of the, larger than Rome’s, catacombs of San Gennaro in the northern part of the city leading to the middle-class Capodimonte.
Photograph the graffiti in the slum of Sanita. Sadly, Naples’ modern tourist narrative invests in poverty as a fetish, giving aspiring travellers the experience of how the working class lives. It’s up to one’s discerning observer, of course, apart from the instagram bottles of red Peroni left forgotten on the benches, to notice the Fratelli d’Italia stickers on the walls. Nowadays, the far right talks directly and more effectively to the lower classes, and that is the basis of Georgia Meloni’s Italian success story.

Visit the church-museum Pio Ricorde Della Misericordia (€10) for Caravaggio’s Seven Acts of Mercy. The Milan-born Italian painter spent no more than two years in Naples, yet he is its artist. A totally unconventional persona, he challenged the public sentiment of the time, wasn’t he the first punk in history?
Have Nu Genea in your headphones -obligatory- Nu Genea.

You should be doing loqueles in the markets. Most true the fish market next to Porta Nolana, most hip the Pignasecca downtown. And if you’re an Instagram victim like me, get a sandwich from Con Mollica o Senza. “With or without flea” is the name, you say without and watch them remove it from a huge loaf, which they’ll then fill with whatever you tell them (tell them stratziatella and peanut cream, sausage whatever you want – to avoid block queues, weekday mornings are best).

Take a cable car up Bomero Hill with its fishy view of the city.

Descend the steps to Ciaiaia, Naples’ posh neighbourhood. After Plaça Plesibito and the town hall, another city unfolds. Scooters don’t slalom among the pedestrians, suddenly the windows are filled with Gucci and Versace, the elegant crowd is out for food and drinks from “experienced mixologists”. It’s a pleasant break from the chaos of the other side, which you’ll probably miss after a while.
To walk, beach-wise, along the Lungomare. Next to you, couples in romantic premenade, alans drinking bafos between the rocks with portable cassette players like 80s and, tourists killing time until their booking time.
Go out for records at Gommalacca Records where you can find everything, but mostly forgotten italo and Cicciolina’s record attempts. Continue on to the Vesuvius Soul record bar for second hand 12″, where every now and then a DJ will be playing and you’ll also learn where the PSC parties are.
Start your night at Piazza Bellini, a classic starting point for Neapolitan exits. In the upright outside Caffe de l’Epoca, in the seated Spazio Nea, which also hosts exhibitions.

Get to know the Neapolitan waterways. Ex Salumeria and L’Antiquario are for you.

Devote half a day to the ancient city of Pompeii. Pro tip I: whatever you read online, just go to Garibaldi Square station and get a return ticket at €6. 60, in 35-40 minutes you’ll be there, // Pro tip II: Book your Pompeii Tickets in advance, smartphone tickets are an easy and convenient way to do it. Smartphone tickets to Pompeii -> here // Pro tip III: have a sturdy-soled walking shoe on, bring water and start by looking straight for the amphitheatre where Pink Floyd gave their legendary concert 4-7 October 1971.

That’s all well and good, but did you make it this far for the food? Fair enough. In Naples it’s very difficult, almost impossible, to limit meals to two a day – the battle with gluten is so inherently lost that it’s not worth fighting. If you believe that “(good) pizza is the same everywhere,” as I do, you may not have to wait two hours to eat at Da Michele pizzeria that Julia Roberts ate at in Eat Pray Love. In the centre, equally famous and busy, is Gino & Toto Sorbillo’s pizzeria (a little further down the road is Antonio Sorbillo’s, but he – they say – is the sneaky cousin who tried to hijack the brand – what can I say, I don’t want to get involved with the Neapolitan family business…). This Guardian guide is by mystics for mystics and the on-the-spot reportage does him justice with the excellent alternative D’Attilio as well as De’ Figliole making pizza fritta (yes, fried pizza that will give you guilt equal to 3 hours of crossfit). Note also three trattorias: Da Tonino (amazing food in the heart of Ciaiaia, because people you’re somewhere you want to try your “spaghetti a la vongole”) // Tandem (chain serving their famous ragu: fast, tasty and heavy – the photo above) // Spiedo d’ Oro (great folk kitchen in the centre, in an off alley with weird hours and very tasty simple food that primo-secondo can cost you less than 15 euros) // Spiedo d’ Oro (a great folk kitchen in the centre, in an off alley with weird hours and very tasty simple food that primo-secondo can cost you less than 15 euros).

Finally, if you find yourself in Naples, go to the stadium.

Not only because going to the Diego Maradona stadium (formerly San Paolo) is like going to the place where Jesus multiplied loaves and fishes. Not only for the new idol that is the Georgian Kvitza Kvararchelia, the “Kvaradona” who brought the championship last year after 34 years, although this year the Napolitans as typical Southerners could not manage the success and are somewhere around 8th-9th having changed four coaches.

But, because it’s a unique opportunity to see 360° Neapolitan entertainment. Outside the stadium they sell scarves informing us that “Juve is shit”, hand out little bottles of something that smells like very cheap grappa to get the tifosi stoned into the stands, and “freedom to the fans” type feuille. Inside the stadium the pregame show comes out of a platform next to the pitch where the, well known to us in Athens, DJ Deborah De Luca plays Neapolitan techno while some – totally unknown to me – pop stars sing playback of some Neapolitan folk pop that the crowd in the horseshoes responds to in their choruses from the heart.