Parthenope was one of the Ancient Greek sirens. She was famously a “maiden-voiced” mermaid, a temptress. Her body washed ashore at the site of modern-day Naples, where she’s been seducing travellers ever since, calling them to this most beguiling of cities. It was with good reason that Goethe believed that you should ‘see Naples and then die’. It’s never been a place about which people have vanilla opinions. It’s too much for that. Too real. Too libidinal. It lives, breathes, sweats, sulks. It’s not a place that you go for a city break, it’s a place that you obsess over, pine after, fall for. Napoli is the lover in your life you can’t walk away from. It’s a place of constant surprises and it’s very, very sexy. ‘L’omm senza vizi è na menesta senza sale,’ the locals say. ‘A man without vices is like a soup without salt.’ Go there. Be seduced.
By William Gilchrist. William is a writer, stylist and photographer. For many years he lived in Naples, which seduced him utterly with its non-stop madness. williamjgilchrist.com
