r/travel • u/guarrandongo • 1d ago

Question Naples - what’s going on?

First time here and I’d heard a million times that it was a bit run down & grubby etc., but I was shocked to see the state of large areas of the city centre. I’m Scottish and it reminded me of Edinburgh during the bin strikes 3 or so years ago - 8 foot high piles of rubbish everywhere. Even saw some decomposing rats lying around that had clearly been there for weeks. Was a full-time job trying to avoid standing on dog shit as well. Assuming it was dogs! One guy also definitely trying to get me to take my hands out of my pockets in an attempt to rob me, I’m in no doubt about that. It wasn’t happening, though.

I took plenty of advice from various people to find the ‘nice’ parts, but we wandered around those areas for a couple of hours and it was terrible.

Has it gone downhill recently, or has it always been like this?

Any further advice on some decent areas with nice bars etc. would be welcome. We only have tonight left and we’d like to try enjoy it as best we can. Had a great dinner last night so wasn’t a total write-off, but after it certainly was. I’d rather not go out than wander around these areas again.

What’s actually going on here?

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u/LeoScipio 1d ago

Naples always was a nightmare. It is the most hated city in this country for a reason.

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u/sideyard19 19h ago

Why doesn't Italy's national government take over management of the city of Naples? Italy clearly has the capability of maintaining nice cities, as evidenced by the by Bolzano, Aosta, and others.

I was in Bologna and Florence once and I found both of those cities to be clean and beautiful.