Lungomare (Waterfront Promenade)

The Lungomare di Napoli is regularly cited as one of the most beautiful urban waterfront walks in the world, and for once the hype is justified. Stretching roughly three kilometers from Castel dell'Ovo to Mergellina, this seafront promenade gives you Vesuvius on your left, the islands of Capri and Ischia ahead, and the chaotic beauty of Naples climbing the hills to your right. On a clear evening, when the sunset turns the bay gold and Vesuvius glows purple, it is genuinely hard to believe this view is real.

The promenade follows Via Partenope — named for the siren who, according to Greek mythology, drowned herself here after Odysseus resisted her song. Her body washed up on this shore, and the Greeks named their colony Parthenope in her honor before later refounding it as Neapolis. Every step you take along this waterfront is walking on mythology.

The seafront was pedestrianized in 2012 by Mayor Luigi de Magistris, sparking a furious controversy (Neapolitans love their cars the way they love their saints — possessively and loudly). But the result transformed the lungomare into the city's living room. Families stroll here on Sunday afternoons, joggers circle at dawn, couples claim benches at sunset, and impromptu soccer games break out on the wider sections.

Along the way you pass the Villa Comunale — Naples' oldest public park, opened in 1781 — and the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, one of the oldest marine biology research stations in the world, founded in 1872. But mostly you just walk, and look at the bay, and understand why Neapolitans say "Vedi Napoli e poi muori" — see Naples and die — because once you've seen this, everything else is a letdown.