|
For the Romans, Campania and particularly the Bay of Naples was the land of plenty, a blessed region of mild climate, gorgeous scenery and an accessible location that made it a favourite vacation and retirement area for the city's nobility. Patrician Rome built villas here by the score - Hadrian had a house at Baia, for example - and towns like Pompeii and Herculaneum were among the richest in the imperial era: the "Bay of Luxury", Cicero called it. Later, when Naples became the final stop on northerners' Grand Tours, the bay became no less fabled, the relics of its heady Roman period only adding to the charm for most travellers. It's a charm that is easy to detect - the landscape is still there and still as impressive, and the offshore islands of Capri, Ischia and Procida are no less enticing than they ever were, if immeasurably more crowded. But the fact is that these days it's hard to tell where Naples ends and the countryside begins. Northern money and Camorra speculation mean that the city now sprawls around the bay in an industrial and residential mess that is quite at odds with the region's popular image. The shoddily built abusivi - houses erected without planning permission - add an extra terror to living in a geologically unstable region; the Camorra and corrupt local officials were blamed for the tragedy at Sarno in 1998, when more than a hundred people were killed by a mudslide. You need to head some way out of the city before reaching anywhere you might want to stay for longer than an afternoon, especially if you want to swim. Even if the water is clean, the proximity of the bay's industry will make you think it isn't; and it's only when you reach lively Sorrento in the east, workaday Pozzuoli in the west, or any of the islands that you really feel free of it all. Luckily this is easy by way of the extra-urban train services out of Naples , or one of the bay's plentiful ferry connections: most of the places mentioned below are convenient for day-trips - though many obviously demand longer.
Your Tip for Bay of Naples
Help other backpackers! Write your own guides and backpacking tips to Bay of Naples - they will appear instantly on this page - Please only write a tip/guide to Bay of Naples - visit the main Bay of Naples forum to ask a question!
Please do not post links to your site here (they won't work) - please use the Bay of Naples webguide section below! Thanks.
| 
