I’m not going to pretend that I’m the biggest fan of Naples. Nor am I going to pretend that all of it’s negative press is wrong. What I am going to say in this post is that although Naples is a neglected, chaotic and somewhat dirty city, there is no need for people to treat it with such disgusting disrespect and pure ignorance.
This rant is the result of me reading a blog entry, which you can read in full here if you so wish: http://apetcher.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/sorrento-danger-in-naples/ . Now what really rattled my cage about this blog entry was his ridiculously close-minded and unintelligent review on Naples. This blog appears to very popular and I assume that this subscribers use his reviews as a means of learning whether or not a place is worth visiting. I think his review was completely unfair on Naples because it is very one-sided and based on non-factual information. To put it bluntly it is antipropaganda.
My first criticism of his review is this sentence “Naples […] was dangerous for a number of reasons. Most obvious of all is its perilously close proximity to Vesuvius that looms large over the city.” This is possibly one of the last reasons why going to Naples is “dangerous”. If he’d bothered to do his research he would know that Naples is not in the red zone of Vesuvius. There are rumours that IF there happened to be another eruption to the scale of one that happened 4000 years ago (before the famous eruption that buried Pompeii” Naples could be effected and even destroyed by molten debris and ash, but this is certainly not a reason to view a trip to Naples as dangerous. And even more importantly is the fact that Vesuvius is THE MOST monitored volcano in the world. If there was to be an eruption we would be given notice and thus I doubt you as a tourist would be able to enter Naples in the first place.
His second reason for Naples “dangerous”ness is “lawlessness because Naples has enormous problems with Mafia style organised crime. The Naples equivalent of the Mafia is the Camorra, which is a loose confederation of criminal networks in control of organised crime, prostitution, arms dealing and drug-trafficking, and the gang wars result in a high number of deaths.” Now I appreciate that he does say that the likelihood of him and his group being effected by the Camorra was low, but he then adds that “the tour guide did give strong advice on taking care of wallets and valuables and a recommendation not to buy anything from illegal street vendors.” Although both of these citations are true, they are in now way relative of each other. Camorra and pickpocketing is not related. Pickpocketing is a problem in most large European cities. To be honest you would be stupid to walk around any city as a tourist with your wallet full of holiday money in your back pocket. Even without the pickpocketing, his argument is still flawed. The Camorra is more of an inconvenience than a danger, and as a inconvenience I am referring to politics and the running of the city. There is no contact or “danger” between Camorra and tourists. These deaths by gang wars are more or less deaths of clan members or acquaintances. Camorra is no reason to write off Italy.
My third criticism is his reasons for describing Naples as a “unhealthy city”. Naming smog and air pollution as the main culprits is laughable. This is a big city what do you expect? London, Tokyo, New York…air pollution is the downside of urbanisation. I would have preferred to have read more about the rubbish crisis, the animal faeces, the pong of the sea and so on. Even then I don’t see Naples as being “unhealthy”. I suffer from Asthma and I certainly don’t find myself suffocating from the smog. I agree that graffiti is nasty and cheapens the city, however how does graffiti damage your health?
Maybe I’m being to harsh, maybe I’m just irritable. All I know that if you going to make claims about Italy, at least back them up properly. People who read this mans blog and believe his “facts” will be left with a very poor vision of a city that is a little rough around the edges but has at least something to offer: a view into unique Neapolitan life…oh and there is more to Neapolitan cuisine than just pizza (whose taste he didn’t even bother to comment on)!
My finally words are that if he is really that close-minded then maybe he should just stick to anglicised tourist towns like is Sorrento.
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