Naples

On the world's most beautiful gulf, in a suggestive and incomparable position, Naples, capital of the region Campania, is the biggest urban centre in the south of Italy and the third metropolis after Rome and Milan.
The city has a very large territory and its outskirts have been, especially in the last decades, theatre of ruining and building speculation ; it has a conurbation extending in the west reaching Pozzuoli and in the east Castellamare di Stabia, passing the numerous Vesuvius' surroundings towns, area with one of the world's highest population densities.
Beyond the usual clichés and in spite of the heavy contradictions, the city is a concentrate of history, culture, art and nature, in a social-urbanistic context of absolute interest.
In fact, being considered a real "open-air museum", the historical centre of Naples has been recently included by Unesco into the world's human heritage.
An interlacement of history and legend wraps the city's origins.
It is told that in very remote times (1000 B.C.) three mermaids named Parthenope, Ligeia and Leucosia were transformed into rocks after their defeat by Orpheus in a singing competition.
The Greek poet Apollonius Rodius, instead, tells that the three mermaids died due to Ulysse's indifference to their sweet melodies, letting themselves sink to the ground for the humiliation. The body of Parthenope was then dragged by the current of the sea on the Thyrrhenian coast in the splendid arc of the gulf of Naples and buried there on the small island of Megaride, where today Castel dell'Ovo stands, giving the name to the first urban settlement. According to Strabo and other Greek historicians, the foundation of the first urban nucleus around the year 500 B.C. has to be attributed to Greek elements coming from the near Cumae. With the old city (Palaepolis), Neapolis began to grow, a new city, a large and important commercial centre.
It's certain, however that the city was involved from the 7th to the 5th century B.C. in the Greek wars for the control of the seas.
Successively it surrendered without great resistance to Rome following truthfully its destiny, at the beginning as a federated city and later as a municipality.
However, in spite of the very good relationship with Rome, Neapolis continued to conserve Greek culture, language and customs, becoming one of the favourite areas of the cultured aristocracy. In 1224 Federico II founded the university which kept to be the only university in the south of Italy for seven centuries.