Living in Naples

[Dancingtothemusicoftime]

Hi, my DH has been offered a 3-year job opportunity in Italy, about 20 miles outside Naples. The relocation and expat package is good and our DC are excited at the prospect; they are at uni or will be doing A levels so will stay in U.K. and come to us for the long holidays.

We visited a couple of weeks ago to take a look as it would mean me taking a career break so a significant decision. There is other stuff (academic) I can do during that break so I won't be climbing the walls.

However, I really disliked Naples, much to my surprise as I have visited Italy many times before (though not Naples) and always loved it. It will be our main go-to destination while we are there. I found it filthy, chaotic and depressing. It felt unsafe. I know Italy has a different vibe to the UK but this was something else! I was so relieved to get on the plane at the end of our visit.

There are lots of pros to the offer - easy travel to Rome via the new fast train; the opportunity to see more of Italy and Europe. I suppose I just wanted to hear from someone who had the same response as me but came to love the area.

We have lived happily all over the world, often in very austere places, so this reaction was a first for me. I suppose it made me reconsider as suddenly being physically away from my DC and my increasingly frail elderly parents, plus take a break from a career I enjoy, seemed to be a high price to pay to go to a place I instinctively loathed! Apologies if I sound a bit snowflakey, but we need to make a decision this week and I'm struggling!

Any thoughts would be really welcome, even if it's to tell me to get over myself!

I've had friends in Naples and around the coast in ravelling and I love the area including Naples.

Good for you - sounds a fabulous opportunity if DCs are already at uni & you can work on PhD while away. I've lived in Italy & my experience was it's basically very similar to the UK compared to other places

Good on you OP

All the best

Good for you! I am sure it will be an adventure. (BTW I recently finished my PhD in Italy through an English university as a distance-learning student so want to wish you all the best for that too!)

Hi Dancingtothemusicoftime, I wish you all the best and hope it works out for you :) . I love Pompeii and Herculaneum and that will just be a short train ride away for you. And Sorrento isn’t far either.

Op, my friend lives in Naples because of her husbands job. It’s military. She has a really good life and lives just in the outskirts. They’re always away for nights here and there and they’ve decided to settle in Italy when he retires. They’re both now fluent in Italian.

OK I spent time in Naples 20 years ago but was mostly based in a hilltop village above Formia- I do not recall how far that was to Napoli- too far to do daily but my boyfriend at the time took me to some pretty magical villages close to Naples. I would just find a nice place outside naples to live and find a part of napoli that you are comfortable with and just access that area. I know it is rougher than Rome but it can grow on you, and I considered moving there but felt I was too old to start again in a new language so I cannot say I got to knwo the city independently- it was all curated via the boyfriend at the time who was raised there. It is only 3 years- frankly I would just go and find an alternative place to live. I now live in a big US city and we rarely go into it, but live in a scenic suburb.

I liked this little town. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formia

teisan My friends did three years also military, and she loathed it. They were near Lago Patria. She cried when she arrived; tells me she cried near;y every day she wa there, and cheered when they left. She said the rest of Italy was great, but she absolutely loathed her time near Naples, and the area was a shit hole.

The mafia reach is very long there, and no-one seems to be immune from what she said.

My friends did three years also military, and she loathed it. They were near Lago Patria. She cried when she arrived; tells me she cried near;y every day she wa there, and cheered when they left. She said the rest of Italy was great, but she absolutely loathed her time near Naples, and the area was a shit hole.

Your poor friend! What a miserable 3 years she had. But to be honest it sounds like a very extreme reaction to a posting.

And yes, I’d heard about the Mafia. My friend told me after I’d noticed something. In fact just yesterday someone caught my attention and I thought - Jeez, he HAS to be in the Mafia.

I probably watch too much TV.

Givenmy friend is an RN wife of decades with lots of experience of moving, and she is happy here in Belgium, and has been in other places, then I think Naples was the problem, and not her.

I’ve lived in other countries and, indeed, moved around within a city in other countries and my one piece of advice is to live in the nicest possible neighbourhood and centrally in any foreign location. You won’t be there forever and you will want to spend your time out and about learning the language and absorbing the culture, not doing family stuff/home renovations/gardening/dog walking as you would at home. I don’t know Naples well but it must have its bourgeois areas, wonderful local food markets, smart shops and restaurants. Gravitate towards them and towards the glamorous savvy expats who you must aim to befriend as they will share insider knowledge with you.

A bit of Googling suggests that Chiaia is the right area to start house hunting. It’s on the right side of town for your husband’s commute, too.

Given my friend is an RN wife of decades with lots of experience of moving, and she is happy here in Belgium, and has been in other places, then I think Naples was the problem, and not her

I do understand about postings. I was a military wife for 30 years plus also.

We went to Naples on holiday a couple of years ago, staying for 2 weeks in the 'notorious' Spanish quarter. I was a bit trepidatious, having read all sorts of scare stories about how dangerous and filthy it was. We absolutely loved it! I've never encountered so many friendly, warm people as we did in Naples - they really seemed to go out of their way to engage with you, welcome you and help you. We met so many people who were clearly very proud of their city and eager to share it with us. One day we went up to the Capodimonte Observatory (quite a trek on metro, bus etc). We walked all the way round the building without finding a way in, and finally asked a couple out for a walk, in my halting Italian, where the entrance was. They told us it was closed that day (we hadn't realised it only opened sometimes), but were so eager to assuage our disappointment that they then decided that we should experience the 'best pizza in the neighbourhood' and that they'd show us the way to their favourite neighbourhood restaurant, where the observatory staff often went for lunch. They hustled us off there, introduced us to the owner, gave strict instructions to the waiter, and off they went. It was a pretty down at heel, mediocre looking place, but the pizza was the best we'd ever had. Sure enough, in came the observatory staff, and the next thing we know, the waiter is talking away to them, obviously about us as he's gesticulating and they're all looking. After some discussion, they sent over their best English speaker, who told us that they had a couple of open evenings coming up which they could invite us to, and when we explained that we were leaving Naples soon, eventually offered to give us a private tour! We hadn't even been that bothered about going to the observatory! There wasn't time for us to do that, but that just sums up how we found the majority of people we met there, from the guy on the deli counter in the little neighbourhood shop, who would boss us about selling us meats (making sure we were going to pair it with the right cheeses and wines), to the owner of the pizzeria under the apartment who, when having a pre-dinner drink and I asked him whether the shop would still be open to buy herbs, demanded to know what herbs and why, told me that there was a much better recipe for squid, and took me into the kitchen while he put together a little box of herbs and leaves for me and told me how I should cook it. I've never encountered people so friendly (and bossy, but that's their way, I think). The city has an amazing vibrancy to it, for all the filth and noise.

You do have to watch yourself safety-wise, but that's the same in any city, and London has just as much of a problem with bag/phone snatchers on mopeds as Naples does. The only hint of danger we encountered was a little old lady trying to shepherd us out of the Spanish quarter and back to the main drag because 'è pericoloso qui', and when I explained that we were staying in the neighbourhood, she beamed at us and off she went. You see tourists wandering around with their huge long lense cameras slung casually over their shoulders and obviously expensive watches/jewellery, and of course they're at risk, but if you're sensible, keep your bag/camera close and your wits about you, then I didn't find any issue.

If I had the money, I'd spend every winter there!

I lived in Naples as a child (possibly outing but hey ho!) and came back to England when I was 12. We go back every year for a month or so to visit family etc. Naples is awful. Beautiful and cultured and ideal for visiting other places in Italy but completely over run with crime and poverty in areas. My advice to you would be to look at the villages around Naples. We have a villa in castle volturno which is about 20 mins from Naples and not half as bad :-) luckily the locals profit a lot from tourists and so in my experience we never had any real crimes committed against us.

I should probably add that my Naples aspect of my childhood is one of my fondest memories and I will always be grateful for it so your children have a lot to gain if you go :-)

Thank you all so much for your thoughts, advice and experiences of Naples. I'm still a bit up and down, principally about leaving my job, but the decision is made and I intend to go with an open mind and embrace both the good and bad.

My youngest DD is particularly excited as she will be spending all the school holidays with us, so I'm keen to discover the best places to visit before she comes out for the first time so that it can be a great experience for her.

I met a military wife yesterday at a Royal Wedding gathering who told me that she had loathed it, so much so that her DH requested an early move back to the U.K., but several of their friends had loved it and hoped to go back. I think that pretty much reflects the mix of opinions on this thread.

I’m moving out to Italy this summer too. We’ll be up North though.

Feel free to PM if you want. :)

Teisan My friend has done 37 years as a military wife, and still has some to go as he dh keeps getting extended. I did 28 years of dh's 34 years in, as I was only 19 when we got together, and he retired in 2013 at 53.

She says it was the only time she's loathed somewhere as much as she did Naples.

Sounds good scary.

Dancing-I've been in Puglia since 1994 so we'll virtually be neighbours
Naples is everything that has been said above: filthy, crime ridden, chaotic, lawless, beautiful, friendly, unique etc etc. Parts of it remind me of Paris, wide tree-lined boulevards, and parts of it remind me of Manchester Moss Side back in the height of the drug wars.

Let me know if you need any help!