The Romans called it Campania felix, and the name spoke of the fertility of the land: it is the most populous region of the South and the third in Italy, with 550 comuni and five provinces around Naples. The city has the largest historic centre in Europe, a UNESCO site since 1995; not far off Vesuvius looms over the bay, and at its foot Pompeii and Herculaneum stopped in the year 79 — not ruins, but two whole towns with the shop signs still legible.
The rest is a sequence hard to take in a single journey: the Amalfi Coast, a World Heritage site, Capri, Ischia and Procida in the bay. Before the Romans there were the Osci and the Samnites here, and the Greek colonisation that made this coast one of the centres of Magna Graecia; then, for centuries, Naples was the capital of a kingdom. Even the pizza is heritage: the art of the Neapolitan pizzaiuolo has been on the UNESCO intangible heritage list since 2017. Campania asks for energy and gives it back multiplied: better to surrender to its rhythm than to fight it.
The places worth the trip on their own, picked by our editors.
Map and list are connected: hover one to light up the other, click to enter.
Our editors' ranking: the area's most important places, drawn from the individual town guides. See the national rankings →
1 🏺 Archaeological sites Parco Archeologico di Pompei 📍 Pompei Fiorelli's plaster casts, the Forum and the Villa of the Mysteries in the town Vesuvius sealed. 
2 🏰 Castles & palaces Royal Palace of Caserta 📍 Caserta The Bourbon palace: 1,200 rooms, 1,742 windows and three kilometres of fountains uphill. 
3 🏖️ Beaches & sea Blue Grotto 📍 Anacapri In 1826 five men went into the cursed cave; what came out of it was the Blue Grotto. Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Hand-stretched dough, tomato, mozzarella and basil, baked in under a minute in a wood-fired oven: Neapolitan pizza is an art recognised by Unesco.
Read more →Sliced tomato, mozzarella and basil, the three colours of the flag: caprese takes its name from Capri, but no document fixes its date of birth.
Read more →🏖️ Seaside 9 🏛️ UNESCO heritage 9 🏝️ Islands 4 🏘️ Villages 3 🍷 Food & wine 3 ♨️ Spa towns 1
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📅 Every year, from 15 to 19 October
From 15 to 19 October Casaluce celebrates its patron Our Lady of Casaluce, whose devotion reached as far as São Paulo, Brazil, where the Italian community of the Mooca neighbourhood still celebrates her today.
📅 Every year, on 16 October
On 16 October Trentinara celebrates its patron Saint Irene of Thessalonica; the town lies within the Cilento National Park and is known for its Terrazza del Cilento viewpoint.
📅 Every year, on 16 October
On 16 October Calvi celebrates its patron Saint Gerard Majella; the town also preserves the Casino del Principe.
📅 Every year, on 18 October (and the first Sunday of July)
On 18 October Praiano celebrates its patron Saint Luke; the hamlet of Vettica Maggiore has its own patron, Saint Januarius, celebrated on different dates.
