My husband and I will be in Naples for a few nights and plan to tour the Amalfi Coast for 4 nights, driving on our own. We have not chosen a base to stay on the Amalfi Coast yet. I'd like to hear coments from those of you who have driven yourselves around the area. Many thanks.

gemini, why have you chosen Naples? Have you been before?

I want to spend a week in Naples and have been discouraged from doing that so I'm very curious to hear from anyone who has been or maybe you will post a report when you get back? I'd sure appreciate it.

Hi Timlin. No I have never been, but my husband was there recently on business and fell in love with the Bay and the food and thought the shopping was lots of fun. We plan to spend one of our days in nearby Pompei.

I've been to Naples. It's a fantastic destination. If I won a trip to Italy and had my choice of where to stay for a week, Naples would be at the top of my list.

Naples is filled with incomparable art treasures, and has a very flamboyant style. It was an important capital of Italy (Neopolis) when the Greeks ruled the Mediterranean. It was the seat of Italian power with its famed Neopolitan royalty, until it lost that position to Northern Italy, and has suffered ever since from deliberate discrimination and its own stubbornly unmodern culture.

In addition to being fascinating in its own right, with several first class museums and many historic sites, it is a base for exploring the incredible ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum without rushing through them.

Naples is a very chaotic city, with very few traffic rules and lots of youngsters riding Vespas. The streets are narrow and crowded, so it can be stressful to walk around. Some parts of Napoli are extremely impoverished -- visibly so. Garbage is piled in the middle of streets. Immigrants struggle to make a living selling things off blankets. Near the train station area in particular one sees prostitutes and drug dealers.

To visit Napoli without feeling stressed out an anxious, one needs to stay in a nice hotel on the waterfront, learn which areas of the city to avoid just as one would in the US, and budget for taxis in the evening just for reassurance. The restaurants and food and pastries of Napoli are memorable, and the pizza is the real deal.

Napoli has been unable to join in the general uplift of Europe from WWII until today. But it is unjustly looked down upon and people who avoid it really miss something. Coping with the obstacles that it presents tourists is worth it. No tourist has been violently harmed in Napoli at any time I can think of. Just leave your valuables in the hotel safe while you tour the city.

We've been to Pompeii and Rome with just a 15 minute stop in Naples between but I've wanted to go back and do Naples so badly and everyone says not to do that.....I'm told to avoid Naples. Your post, nessundorma, has me convinced. My nest trip over is going to be to Naples for a week....and maybe a week in Rome.

Gemini I hope you have a really good time. Pompeii is amazing but I also want to visit Herculaneum and climb to the lip of Vesuvius......I want to visit the Archialogical Museum that holds all the finds from Pompeii.....I definitely want to visit Naples.

I often read on Fodor's and other message boards people trying to arrange GTG's in various places abroad. If somebody suggested Napoli, I might actually be interested!

But not until late 2007 or 2008 at the earliest.

Don't wait for me, Timlin!