Naples, Italy

Whatever your real interest in Campania, the chances are that you'll wind up in NAPLES (Napoli) – capital of the region and, indeed, of the whole Italian south. It's the kind of city that is laden with visitors' preconceptions, and it rarely disappoints: it is filthy, it is very large and overbearing, it is crime-infested, and it is most definitely like nowhere else in Italy – something the inhabitants will be keener than anyone to tell you. In Naples, all the pride and resentment of the Italian south, all the historical differences between the two wildly disparate halves of Italy, are sharply brought into focus. This is the true heart of the mezzogiorno, a lawless, petulant, yet fiercely Catholic city that has its own way of doing things. There's plenty to see – the city's Duomo, Palazzo Reale and a couple of impressive museums in the Capidomonte gallery and archeological museum – but it's not so much a city of sights as just a great place to be, particularly its dense centro storico. Spend a couple of days here and you're likely to be as staunch a defender of the place as its most devoted inhabitants.