Hate Letter to Naples

Upon arriving in Naples by train for the first time, I immediately found everything they said I would. I was told Naples was extremely dirty, and it was. I was told it was dangerous, and it really seemed dangerous. I was told it was disorganized, but they failed to emphasize how disorganized it was. The sidewalks were used as parking lots, no one seemed to respect traffic lights, crosswalks, nothing of the sort. And yet, after spending 7 days there, the following year I was eager to return, and I did return to Naples.

Naples is surrounded by places more beautiful than Naples. To the east are Procida and Ischia, both beautiful islands. To the west are Pompeii and Herculaneum, two of the most impressive archaeological excavations in the world, entire cities that were buried and frozen in time, and which today you can visit and walk through streets and enter 2000-year-old houses, perfectly preserved. To the south, Sorrento, Capri, and the Amalfi Coast, which are among the most sought-after, expensive, and beautiful tourist destinations on the planet.

All these places deserve love letters. Naples would be offended if it received the same letter, or perhaps worse, Naples would be indifferent. The city simply doesn't care about you, doesn't try to please you, and doesn't apologize. Paris is a city that can also be described as dirty and chaotic, but people will always try to defend Paris with "but it's so romantic, so beautiful, it has the tower, the Louvre," while Naples, no one defends.

If you think like Marx and believe that religion is the opium of the people, then Naples is the dealer. I have never seen so many churches per square meter, and like everything in Naples, all are decadent in one way or another. Facades falling to pieces, some completely closed to visitors, constant renovations. And they all refer to a past that will never return, something tells me it would be impossible to build any of these churches in today's Naples.

The official religion of Naples doesn't seem to be Christianity, but rather football (soccer), and the patron saint, although officially Saint Januarius, is actually Maradona.

I have met many people who hated Naples, and I almost get offended when talking to them. Because Naples is much more than they say it is, Naples deserves a much more qualified hatred, and not a shallow hatred from someone who was simply looking for a pizza, an Aperol spritz, and a beautiful sea view and was disappointed.

People who hate Naples speak badly of the food, but you can't blame the city for their lack of taste and lack of ability to discern what is a tourist trap and what isn't. Surprisingly, this is the only point about Naples that I find impossible to criticize. Naples has the best food in Italy, one of the best in Europe.

Naples "has nothing to do," Rome has the Colosseum, Paris has the Tower, and Naples has nothing that looks good on Instagram. But one shouldn't hate Naples for the lack of "grand historical monuments," the history is there, you just have to want to understand it. The very name "Nea Polis" comes from the Greek for "new city." Walking through the streets of Naples is walking on the same streets that existed 2500 years ago, which, incidentally, can be visited in the underground part of the city.

The main streets of the historic center, and the perpendicular streets that cut through the main ones, form a grid. This grid has remained exactly the same since the time of the Greeks. Like the Ship of Theseus, Naples has the same structure, only the cells change. The Spanish Quarter (Quartieri Spagnoli) carries in its own name the history of when the Spanish occupied it. And even today this is reflected in the Neapolitan language. It's not Naples' fault that people don't care and don't seek it out, but like everything in this city, it could be explored much better.

My aunt was going to visit Naples for a few hours and asked me "what is there to see there?" In any tourist city, this answer comes very easily. "There's the Sagrada Familia," "Eiffel Tower," "see the Pyramids," "Sugarloaf Mountain, Christ the Redeemer, and the beaches."

Naples has none of that, I thought for 10 seconds and I answered something like "there's a castle that they say has an egg underneath, a gallery that looks like the one in Milan, a graffiti of Maradona, and some churches." Is this serious? Is this one of the most interesting cities in the world?

I hate that I had to go there to see if there was indeed something interesting beyond pizza in the city. Of course there was, and that is the reason for the existence of this text.

Cities that have a seaside and a beautiful sea suitable for swimming are special. Rio is loved in large part for this. This is one of the very few merits that Balneário Camboriú has against its 10x more interesting cousin to the south, Floripa (Florianópolis). Unfortunately, Floripa has over-polished its seaside and it is not suitable for swimming. All these cities have beaches in front of their main avenue. In the case of Floripa, the beach was created, or moved forward because of the landfill, in the case of Balneário, the beach was widened. Both cities realize the value of having a beach as a postcard.

Naples is on the sea but has no beach (actually it does, but it's not close to the historic center). When visiting Naples, I didn't find this strange immediately, several places have sea but no beach. Until I saw an old painting of the city of Naples, where the existence of a beach was recorded.

Wait, I didn't see that beach there? There's just a highway and a port.

That's right, Naples is the curious case of a city that had a seaside and managed the incredible feat of building on top of the seaside, and effectively losing all access to the beach. Sensational. Instead of bathers, parasols, physical activity, we have cruises docking and cargo ships.

The irony of Naples is the same as that of a band that used to be very good, and now released an album that the critics hated. Maybe people just didn't understand the album. Or like a person who is rude and makes you think "how did this person get so far? Does she have qualities below the surface?"

You see, dear reader, I am not writing a text about Joinville. I went to Joinville, found it extremely boring, thought "I definitely wouldn't want to live here," didn't see anything interesting there, left, and went on with my life.

Joinville didn't receive an article, so why does Naples deserve one?

Naples bothered me enough for me to try to see below the surface. The city is chaotic, dirty, "dangerous" (let's be honest, it doesn't even come close to the cities of Latin America in terms of danger), why did it get where it got?

Why so many songs, paintings, poems, tourists, food, and references in popular culture? No one talks about Frankfurt, there aren't many movies set there, "Frankfurt pizza," immigrants from Frankfurt in São Paulo, people whose dream is to visit Frankfurt. Frankfurt has a population similar to Naples and a GDP probably 5x higher.

Why Naples?

I once read a text by a Frenchman who described Naples as "Italy before it sold itself to tourists." Naples has life.

Currently, it seems that everything converges to become a hospital wing, designed by Apple California. Perfectly clean, sanitized with gel alcohol, everything in white marble, white lights, stainless steel, and with the impossibility of inhabiting any kind of life, of bacteria, of fungus.

Naples is the counterpoint to that.

Dubai builds its buildings to be as "modern" as possible, without any historical characteristics.

Naples doesn't build, there's nowhere to build. The city itself is above another city, also called Naples, where Greeks used to live and which is buried and frozen inside the lava from several eruptions of the Vesuvius volcano. As I mentioned earlier, the streets remain the same, since the Greeks, the "design" of the city is organic. And this particular organism has been alive for over 2000 years.

If there was ever anything white and clean in the city, today it is black and worn. Partly because of the ashes of the volcano and the volcanic stone, partly because of the cigarette ashes that the population throws on the ground.

And about the volcano, it is perfectly visible and haunts the city. The volcano destroyed Pompeii, destroyed Herculaneum, probably destroyed Naples, and will destroy Naples again in the future. It is one of the most monitored volcanoes on the planet, because at any moment it can erupt and destroy the lives of a million Neapolitans.

Only it seems they forgot to tell the Neapolitans. They don't care. The volcano has become a garden, where the tomato that goes on the pizzas is planted, and the grapes that go into the wine are harvested. This attitude in my view encapsulates the feeling in the city. You are on top of history, destruction, nature, in front of one of the most beautiful seas that exists, eating pizza and drinking coffee.

The museums are incredible, the underground part of the city is incredible, the history is incredible, and it's all there. If it were in Paris, or even in Joinville, people wouldn't shut up about how incredible the culture and history of the city is. There are pizza ovens, still active, that were already making pizza 200 years before Italy was called Italy, or it was even a country and not a set of kingdoms.

I joked with my father, the most random and decadent cathedral in Naples, the 20th least impressive church in the city, if it were transported to Floripa, it would be the largest and most impressive church in Florianópolis. And the Neapolitans don't care, the facade is probably falling to pieces.

The nightlife scene in Naples has the same vibe as the rest of the city. Authentic, decadent, without commitment to pleasing tourists. People don't care, you're nobody. It's very cool.

Being in Naples is a constant tension between thinking there is nothing to be explored, realizing that there is something very interesting, and being perplexed because it seems that no one cares that this something very interesting is poorly explored. People are probably too busy doing something profoundly unimportant, while trying not to be run over by the motorcycles that constantly pass through all places.

Naples has tiny pizzerias, with ridiculous facades, non-existent menus, selling incredible pizzas for 3 euros. The exact same pizza would cost 5 euros if the environment was more well-kept, it would cost 10 euros if it were in a "boteco" (a simple bar) in São Paulo, and 20 euros if that "boteco" had the name "Cucina Antico Forno".

Even the city's dessert, the baba au rhum, has a horrible appearance, looks like a dry and bland cake, and is quite tasty, soft, and filled with liquor.

The city has not yet met marketing, has not met Instagram, does not know how to sell anything, does not know how to sell itself, does not know how to exploit what is interesting, does not know how to show off, does not know how to deal with tourists properly, and does not care.

I think that in part that's what makes Naples special. If you really want to understand, really want to look for, really want to explore, you will be rewarded. Naples has a lot to offer, but it won't offer it to you, you'll have to go looking for it.

My hatred for Naples comes from the fact that I spent a week there and only at the end of the trip did I begin to see what was below the surface. It could have been so much easier, so much more pleasant. The city could be so much cleaner, with a beach, so much more organized. But maybe then it would be "just another city." Just another city that sold itself to tourism, that transformed everything into "spots" to take pictures and post on Instagram, or into tiktoks of pretty little foods with pistachios to be tasted.

Naples occupies more space in my brain than it deserves, much more than any other city I have spent less than 1 month in. I don't understand Naples. I think there is something to be understood, maybe spending a few years there I would come to understand.

Naples is not pleasant, Naples is a mess. I didn't understand it, but I'm glad I was there. I hate Naples, and I'm looking forward to going back.