WHAT'S IT LIKE?

When approaching Naples, take a deep breath and brace yourself. Of course, you can book into an elegant Grand Tour-style hotel - along the bay or on a rise overlooking it - and take a cab from your cosy nest to admire the peerless art collection at the Capodimonte Gallery or the artefacts at the Museo Nazionale Archeologico. But that's rather missing the point.

Because Naples' soul lies in its deafening, pulsating alleyways, in its exuberant, histrionic locals and in its exciting blend of joyous confusion, incredible culture and sense of mild danger.

SECRET PLACES

Beneath the city surface lies an older, darker and altogether more shiver-inducing Naples. Tours of the extensive underground passages - old drains, quarries for building materials, tunnels for military uses - are arranged by the Napoli Sotterranea organisation (tel. 400 256). But you can plumb the depths by yourself too, visiting the creepy Catacombe di San Gennaro (via Capodimonte 16, tel. 741 1071; 9am-noon Tue-Sun for guided tours) or Catacombe di San Gaudioso (via della Sanità 124, tel. 544 1305; 9.30am-12.30pm daily for guided tours).

OUTDOOR SPACES

You don't go to Naples for wide open spaces, but if the chaos gets too much, head for the edges. A walk along the harbour replaces traffic din with the slap of water against ships and jetties. The mole (breakwater) which stretches out below the bulk of the Castel dell'Ovo is often gloriously deserted. And the bay-side Villa Comunale park on the Chiaia seafront is also leafy, though not quiet.

For peace, the park that surrounds the Museo di Capodimonte to the north of the city centre is a good bet. Catch your breath after a surfeit of Old Masters in the magnificent museum (Porta Grande, via Capodimonte; closed Mon) by strolling down one of the verdant paths radiating from the palazzo: though the area around the building swarms with football-kicking locals, peaceful repose lies not far beyond.

URBAN WALK

Naples is a hilly place, and the higher you get, the more likely you are to find a glimpse of the bay glimmering below. Eschew the funicular railways and lifts that link the lower reaches of the city and the hills around it and work up an appetite by ascending on foot.

From piazza del Plebiscito, via Egiziaca a Pizzofalcone shoots sharply upwards past two 17th-century churches - Santa Maria degli Angeli and Santa Maria Egiziaca a Pizzofalcone - to a little park overlooking the magnificent body of water. Wend your way back down through the alleyways of the former fishermen's quarter of Pallonetto, or head straight down the rampa di Pizzofalcone to the slew of seafood restaurants on the seafront below.

GREAT BITES

Where food is concerned, it's difficult to go wrong in Naples. For pizza, the staunchly unreconstructed Da Michele (via Sersale 1, tel. 553 9204; £8 approx, closed Sundays) is a classic. Da Tonino (via Santa Teresa a Chiaia, tel. 421 533; £17 approx) serves excellent traditional dishes, while Vadinchenia (via Pontano 21, tel. 660 265; £24 approx), gives local favourites an unusual twist.

LIVE SOUNDS

Few large acts make it south of Rome but there's a fair amount of local talent, if you watch posters around the centro storico. Like most Italian cities, Naples has taken to providing free mega-concerts at New Year (in piazza del Plebiscito) and sometimes during the summer, when a host of smaller festivals also brings music to the city's parks and squares: again, watch the fly posters.

MARKETS

Naples is a market-lover's delight, though you'll need all the determination you can muster to beat a path between the price- and quality-conscious Neapolitan matrons who pack them. Take cash only and keep a wary hand on it: There are inevitably light fingers in the milling throng.

The mercato per eccellenza is La Pignasecca (8am-1pm daily), stretching from piazza Montesanto all along via Pignasecca and into adjoining streets. Here you'll find everything from swordfish steaks to coffee pots, from delicious bread to bed linen. Don't miss the Pescheria Azzurra (via Portamedina 4, tel. 551 3733) with its abundance of seafood, Pane (piazzetta Pignasecca 35, tel. 552 0299) for a huge range of bread and cakes and, down by the waterfront, the extrovert morning market that fills via Supramuro (Mon-Sat).

Imelda Marcos would have been in her element at the Poggioreale market (8am-2pm Mon, Fri-Sun) in via M di Caramanico, where there's a daunting choice of footwear, plus men's clothes on Saturdays.

MUST BUYS

Spina (via Pignasecca 62, tel. 552 4818) has every conceivable type of coffee pot, in which to attempt to recreate the real Neapolitan thing back home. Exquisite items for your nativity crib fill the numerous little shops along via San Gregorio Armeno.

BOHO SCENE

Neapolitans live in their streets, and the whole of the centro storico fills with a particular brand of laid-back partying most evenings, but particularly on warm Fridays and Saturdays. The action flows from bars around piazza Bellini, piazza Gesù and piazza San Domenico Maggiore, and seeps into nearby streets.

BEST BUILDING

The streets of central Naples are full of glorious, crumbling Baroque palazzi with breathtaking courtyards: wander into as many as you can, if you can get past eagle-eyed porters. The Chiaia district, on the other hand, is littered with fine examples of buildings in the 'Liberty' style, as Italians call Art Nouveau.

Arguably, Naples' most intriguing contemporary spaces are not buildings, but the new stations along Linea 1 of the Metro. Revamped and sprinkled with specially-commissioned art works, they are worth a trip on their own. Piazza Dante station is dominated by huge pieces by Joseph Kosuth and Jannis Kounellis; Sol Lewitt has created a curvy, stalagmite-filled corridor for Materdei station (which houses a Luigi Ontani mosaic); and at Salvador Rosa a dramatic entrance to the station itself gives on to a space filled with Perino and Vele's rusting, veiled Fiat 500s.

WHERE TO SLEEP

Posh: For the ultimate in Neapolitan luxury, the Hotel Vesuvius (via Partenope 45, tel. 764 0044; doubles £280-320), on the Santa Lucia waterfront, is hard to beat. As well as a rooftop restaurant with breathtaking views across the Bay of Naples, it should have installed an outdoor pool by summer 2006.

Affordable: The tinyPortalba 33 (via Portalba 33, tel. 549 3251; double B&B £102) is situated in the booksellers' quarter of the centro storico and is decorated in cosy, ethnic-Med style, with loads of cushions and draped beds.

WHERE TO START

Italian State Tourist Office, or ENIT; Naples Tourist Office

Flights to Naples from: British Airways, Thomsonfly, easyJet, Excel and bmi

Buy Anne Hanley's guidebook Time Out Naples (£12.99 plus p&p from www.timeout.com)

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