Naples — Street Photography from Italy's Most Chaotic City

Naples doesn't ease you in gently. You step off the ship, turn a corner, and suddenly you're in the middle of something — a market, an argument, a scooter using the pavement as a shortcut, a church older than most countries. It's overwhelming and completely wonderful.

We'd been warned about Naples. Everyone gets warned about Naples. Pickpockets, traffic, chaos — the usual cautionary tales that circulate among cruise passengers who've never actually been there. We ignored them and walked into the city anyway, which turned out to be entirely the right decision.

The streets are a photographer's dream. Washing strung between buildings five storeys up, shrines tucked into corners, elderly men conducting serious conversations on plastic chairs outside their front doors. Every alley offers something worth pointing a camera at. I barely looked up from the viewfinder.

We stumbled across a film crew at work on one of the busier streets — full lighting rig, cameras, the lot. Directing anything in Naples must require nerves of steel; half the city was trying to watch the drama unfold while the other half was trying to squeeze past regardless. Whether the director got his shot I have no idea, but I got mine.

We found one of the city's many churches — the Duomo di Napoli, the city's magnificent Gothic cathedral dedicated to the Assumption of Mary. It's also home to the Cappella di San Gennaro and the relic of Naples' patron saint, whose blood allegedly liquefies three times a year to the considerable relief of the city. We took a few minutes away from the noise to let our eyes adjust to the cool dim interior. Then back out into the chaos.

Before heading back to the ship there was, of course, pizza. And beer. This is not optional in Naples. The city takes its pizza seriously and rightly so — this is where it was invented and they haven't forgotten it. We found a place, sat down, ordered, and briefly stopped being tourists and just existed somewhere very good.

Naples rewards the brave. Go independently, walk without a plan, and let the city happen to you.