Back in the day they attracted dark and ominous warnings for tourists, but now Naples and Sicily are safe, vibrant travel hot spots, BRUCE McDOUGALL discovers.
WHEN a history buff, old mate and and fellow traveller declared the ancient Roman city of Pompeii was among the greatest places he had visited – and nearby Sicily also was in his travel sights – that sealed it for us.
As aficionados of the ancient world we had long included Pompeii and Herculaneum – famously and tragically destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius almost 2000 years ago – on our must see list.
When as travel neophytes we set out on our first backpacking jaunt around Italy many moons ago, old folk warned us: “Don’t go to Naples, you’ll get mugged.” Palermo and Sicily, too, were not beloved of parents waving their kids off on the great overseas experience in those days.
But the call to this part of Italy and the richness of the offerings is seductively overwhelming for those of us who spent much of our earlier times further north discovering the likes of Venice, Florence and Rome.
Flying into Napoli and checking into digs in the shadow of Vesuvius with spectacular views of the medieval Castel Nuovo and the waterfront, it was immediately apparent that authorities today are putting effort into protecting visitors and the city’s greatest assets.
With a significant tourist industry to nurture, the police presence is highly visible to the extent that armed guards sport automatic weapons at some key spots.
Stories of petty and not so petty crime remain but we felt quite safe wandering around the historic centre that is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
You are probably more likely to have an altercation with the traffic in Napoli than with thieves or thugs. On the streets one local told us drivers regard traffic lights merely as a “guide” and stop signs a “suggestion”.
Italy’s third largest city after Rome and Milan, Napoli is the home of pizza and gastronomy and a launching pad for trips to the nearby island of Capri (where you can see remnants of the holiday villa of Emperor Tiberius) and the famed Amalfi Coast. But it has plenty of wow factor itself.
Instead of heading over to Capri for a day trip with hordes of other tourists we took a journey 40m beneath Napoli to visit 2400 years of history. More than 400km of tunnels, aqueducts and reservoirs and quarries excavated by the ancient Greeks to extract stone with which they built the city are among the underground treasures.
Nearby Pompeii and Herculaneum buried by Vesuvius in 79CE and to this day only partly excavated, are nothing short of sensational.
Archaeologists who have been working Pompeii since around 1728 continue to unearth stunning artworks and artefacts that provide a snapshot of life 2000 years ago.
Today, more than two million people live in the vicinity of Vesuvius and on its highly fertile lower slopes. Its last eruption was in 1944 and its last major tantrum was in 1631.
And so to gritty and glorious Palermo, Sicily, a short flight across the Tyrrhenian Sea to take an eight-day tour with local experts encompassing many of the island’s greatest sights.
This was followed by five days kicking back with friends who flew down from London and organised an Airbnb in Syracuse a short walk from the magnificently historic island of Ortigia.
Sicily is a land of ancients, the extremely active Mount Etna, fabulous fresh cuisine, picture perfect world heritage-listed towns, baroque churches, golden mosaics, celebrity bolt holes and the Cosa Nostra, more widely known as the Mafia. What is there not to like?
For some time we had felt the urge to visit the island that, back in the day, sat at the strategic crossroads between ancient Carthage and Rome. Invasions and the infusion of so many rich cultures down the ages has left an incredibly rich legacy and imprint that
remains today.
The sights and highlights really are too many to mention here, from the Valley of the Temples at Agrigento, to the playgrounds of the rich and famous at Taormina, the mountain village of Savoca in the province of Messina where Francis
Ford Coppola filmed The Godfather movie, and beautiful baroque cities such as Ragusa, Modica and Noto.
Before heading to Sicily we were advised: “Whatever you do, don’t mention the Mafia.”
But we hadn’t been in Palermo a day before it became apparent that this is a subject the locals are not at all unhappy to raise.
In fact, since the height of the Cosa Nostra assassinations and bombings of the 1980s and ‘90s locals have confronted and fought back against the crime gang scourge.
On the way into Palermo from the airport our driver points out the marked spot where anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone was killed by the Sicilian Mafia on May 23, 1992 in a 500kg remote-controlled car bomb murder on the A29 motorway that shocked the country. Falcone’s wife and three members of his police escort also died instantly.
A museum commemorates the legacy left by Falcone and his colleague Paolo Borsellino who was also killed by the Cosa Nostra in 1992.
Sicily remains an island of glorious contrasts. In a day you can be necking a glass of local vino in a lovely old town or ... on a beach that served as a location for Italy’s most beloved cop show, Inspector Montalbano ... or scaling the black lava slopes of Mount Etna.
Speaking of the great volcano, it remains highly and regularly active – so much so that days after we were there it blew its top yet again, closing Catania Airport and forcing the activation of emergency evacuation plans.
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