Naples wallows in cheerful chaos. The city that gave the world pizza and gelato is surrounded by the ancient ruins of Pompeii and the gorgeous Amalfi Coast. Naples seems to epitomize the contradictions of southern Italy: loud, dirty, charming, friendly, fiercely passionate, enthusiastic and dangerous.
Neapolitans seem to spend every waking moment out on the town, eating, drinking, carousing, and laughing. The people here use the city as their living room, bedroom, even bathroom. They see the city as their home, literally, and they use the parks and the trattorias and the churches to live out their lives.
The city is decorated with the laundry that hangs from every window, flapping and waving in the ocean breeze like Tibetan prayer flags. Every street seems to have at least one crooked old women peering suspiciously out of her window at the life that passes by. Young boys dressed in football shirts fill the piazzas with their games of football, played with all the intensity of a World Cup final.
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