Neapolitan flavours

CRUCIFIXES that talk, shop assistants with the faces of Botticelli angels, sanctified blood that miraculously liquefies. You could believe anything might happen in Naples, never more than a Hail Mary away from being buried by the fractious Mount Vesuvius.

I was in the city to buy a mandolin. This, the most lyrical and romantic of instruments, has its origins right here in old Napoli.

I’ve been fascinated by the mandolin since my father bought my first one many decades ago in Belfast; now it was time to get the genuine article.

The city’s imbroglio of steep, narrow streets allow for just two feasible modes of transport: moped or foot. I opted for a Vespa scooter tour. It’s the only way to see Naples — and if you’re lucky you don’t die.

My driver would be guide, historian, translator, and indeed friend, on an odyssey along streets festooned with washing lines and tenements adorned with peeling stucco and graffiti.

I’d caught the ferry in from Sorrento, and while waiting for the Vespa, had a snack at the Caffe Gambrinus — previous customers: Oscar Wilde, Guy de Maupassant, Ernest Hemmingway. It’s not difficult to understand the cafe’s popularity; the pizza and coffee were just about the finest I’d ever tasted. Blimey. And I’d only been in the city five minutes.

The scooter turned up. Antonio Mosca of Vesparound revved up his machine and we were off — along rutted streets and up the steep switch-back alleyways of this dodgy 3,000-year-old city. Equal measures of sheer beauty and squalor whizzed by.

Naples has over two hundred churches, from ancient chapels with strident weeds growing out of every crevice, to epic cathedrals resplendent with mediaeval riches. Here, in the shadow of some of Christendom's most glorious art, dramatically gesticulating people let it all hang out.

These in-your-face citizens are more than happy to include you. We stopped at music shops, junk shops, bakeries and ancient bars where locals would bid us join them. For a city with a reputation for organised — and indeed unorganised — crime, it is an astoundingly friendly place.

Not all the time, though.

A roundabout, overlooked by the 16th century Sant'Agnello Maggiore church, was the scene of the Lambretta scooter encounter.

A distractingly beautiful woman sat on its pillion, facing backwards, chatting on a smartphone. Meanwhile her boyfriend weaved through the traffic. He avoided our scooter by inches, only to fall foul of a taxi driver. They traded operatic insults; all the while the pillion woman smoked her cigarette and continued her conversation. The traffic came to a halt; Antonio was gesticulating — by this time I was too. The Napolese encourage you to join in.

Obstruction cleared, and we were now closing in on the Via Sebastiano: music shops and luthiers a speciality. We settled on Strumenti Musicali Miletti, a byword amongst mandolinistas.

Ornella, the assistant, was endlessly helpful. Antonio explained my lifelong love of the instrument, and my longing to be good enough to play on a Neapolitan masterpiece. “Ah the mandolin,” she sighed, “both a gift and a curse.” I suppose you could say that about any musical instrument.

A glass cabinet was unlocked, and a hand-carved maple and spruce work of art handed to me. This antique model was made right here in Naples in the 19th century. I picked out a few notes of Santa Lucia (what else, for goodness sake); the tremolo notes resonated like a bell round the old stone-walled shop. The fretting was laser accurate, the strings as easy to press down as an iPad keyboard. Alas, I didn’t have £4,000.

Ornella produced a more modestly priced instrument. Magnificent. An Umberto Gechinni, complete with briar walnut pick-plate, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. My fingers glided over the fingerboard. I wanted to say, right wrap it up now, and let’s go celebrate eponymously with a Bellini cocktail in the Piazza Bellini, just at the end of the street. But Antonio told Ornella we were undecided.

Bargaining is a way of life here.

We strolled down the Via Sebastiano, past more music shops, second hand shops, violin shops, instrument repairers. Streets were lined with traders selling everything from market produce to the most extraordinary bling.

The nearby Via San Gregorio Armeno is almost entirely devoted to selling Christmas decorations or ‘presepi’, the year round. The most famous supplier is Ferrigno Marco at no 8. whose customers have included Bill Clinton, Silvio Berlusconi and me (although not together).

Even if you're an avowed humbug, you'll enjoy deciding whether to go for a little statue of Donald Trump or one of Pope Francis to adorn your Christmas tree or nativity scene.

We passed the Church of San Domengo where Thomas Aquinas, one of the big hitters in the mediaeval Catholic Church, was a teacher. It was here in Naples that his spiritual guidance arrived through a surprising medium — a crucifix began talking to him. Who would doubt it in such a place?

A spot of history

NAPLES was founded by the Greeks, somewhat inevitably followed by the Romans.

Christianity was next — St Peter and St Paul both preached here. Thereafter Europe's foremost gangs showed up: Goths, Normans, Angevins, Fascists, 

This regular change of Neapolitan overlords  bequeathed an enormous legacy of art and architecture to the city. Cultural pilgrims revere the city and visit in vast numbers.

But if you never ventured beyond the gloriously hedonistic Spanish Quarter, or the outrageously free-wheeling Spaccanapoli, the old Roman road which bisects the city, you’d still have a ball.

Antonio pulled on my elbow as I stared up at the decaying Roman aqueduct that follows the Spaccanapoli — it’s an utterly unique feature of the city.

He persuaded me that some light sight-seeing duties would be in order, not least a visit to Napoli cathedral.

Most of the main cathedral, the Duomo, was built in the 13th century, but subsequently devastated by serial earthquakes — God's behaviour can be somewhat disconcerting on occasion.

The Duomo is the venue for the miraculous, and regular, liquefying of St Genarro's blood. A vial of solidified blood of Napoli’s patron saint is brought out in solemn procession. Held aloft, the blood miraculously liquefies, to the accompaniment of encouraging cries from the faithful. Don’t doubt it: this is Napoli. It has to be a recurring miracle.

Plenty of paintings too. You might feel like heading straight for Caravaggio's Flagellation of Christ, shuddering with violence and despair in the bombastic Bourbon-era palace that is the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte. It's an arresting sensation to see this revered image in the city where its creator would regularly set his dogs on unsuspecting fellow citizens – just for fun.

The hugely influential artist led a tumultuous life. He was renowned for brawling, drinking, gambling and general debauchery.

Somewhat surprisingly he made it to the ripe old age of 38.

But mandolin matters curtailed further flaneuring, and we returned to Miletti’s. A price was negotiated; the deal was done. After farewells that would not have disgraced Marco Polo heading out to the New World, we returned to base.

NO matter what your business is in Naples, stay a few days and you’ll soon have your own favourite square.

You’ll have your favourite cafe and favourite waitress – the one with a smile you could pour on a waffle. The cats will be dozing in the shade, the oleanders fluttering slightly in the breeze. You'll nod thoughtfully to yourself; yes, Naples has boundless artistic treasures, but this is no tourists’ theme park. The waitress will arrive with your bottle of Lacryma Christi ('Tears of Christ') — a wine produced locally by monks. You'll look contentedly round this shambles of a metropolis knowing that you’ll be back — you could love this utterly compelling place.

I took along the mandolin on my final day in the city, and in the hairdryer heat of a Neapolitan evening I plucked a nice fat D chord and started humming ". . . Scuzza me, but you see, back in old Napoli, that's amore. . . . ."

—— www.vesparound.com specialise in tailor-made tours — a history tour of Naples, a scooter cruise along the Amalfi coast, or a visit to Pompeii. They are endlessly helpful, knowledgeable and flexible.

—— Mal Rogers was a guest of the Hilton Palace Sorrento. The rooms are as large as meadows, and the views across Naples Bay are glorious

www.hilton.com/Hotel/Sorrento

—— easyJet flies to Naples from Bristol, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Gatwick, Luton and Stansted airports with prices starting from £21.24 per person (one-way, including taxes and based on two people on the same booking). All flights can be booked at www.easyJet.com