Napoli. Un sito, tanti link

This is meant to be an initial introduction to Naples with the educated traveller or keen citizen in mind. An invitation to capture certain peculiar aspects of the structure and culture of a city, whose unique nature has far too often been read merely in terms of its landscape. Unlike the majority of guides organised mostly along the lines of a sightseeing tour, what this sets out to do is to wander through the most singular aspects of the Parthenopean city through the words of six short critical essays.
Firstly, the contrast between the vivacity of contemporary culture and the 'permanence' of more than two thousand years of history: since Naples is an exceptional record of archaeology, architecture, art and history, but it is a modern metropolis as well, with its very own sense of European avant-garde culture.
Beneath the bright and sunny city 'above ground' with its tantalising glimpses of the old centre and an infinite array of panoramic vistas, lies a city below ground, a unique composite of archaeological sites, natural cavities, catacombs and artificial tunnels making up one of the most unsettling aspects of the 'porous city'.
Finally, it seemed appropriate to provide the visitor wandering through the assorted jumble of the streets of Naples with a means to a more knowledgeable approach to such a rich and diversified collection of monuments as well as a complex system of museums. Not forgetting, of course, that the rich tradition of the former Bourbon capital, city of nobles and plebeians, lives on in the markets and workshops, in the shops and streets of crafts and trade or in the culinary tradition which is as refined and varied as it is vital to the life of the city