Some locales can’t seem to shake their less-than-sparkling reputations despite efforts to lock away the skeletons of yesterday. We’ve decided to highlight five of these Bad Rap Cities that are making moves to shed their grimy and gritty images in hopes of becoming more tourist-friendly. Maybe, just maybe, after reading this series you'll be willing to take a chance on them. Enjoy.

Bad Rap City: Naples

Why Go?
The revitalization projects have seen a vast improvement in the overall vibe, with middle-class neighborhoods like the Vomero cropping up all over the city, but locals insist the media ignores it, preferring instead to continue casting Napoli in a bad light. But there are lots of efforts to clean up Naples' act, literally, from the mayor’s tax incentive to pretty up buildings' grim exteriors to the current construction boom designed to expand and improve the underground metro system.

A multimillion-euro project is also underway to revamp the Port of Naples into a sleek cruise ship terminal and shop-filled walkway designed greet and impress the one-million passengers passing through each year. So,if it’s been a while since you visited Naples, chances are you wouldn’t recognize it now.

The second best thing about a trip to Naples is that you can spend all day gorging on sweets like sfogliatelle and zeppole. (The best thing, of course, is eating pizza.) But it turns out choking down pastries might be even worse for us than we previously thought!

Now that the mob is into the racket, your baked goods aren't so good says The Guardian:

Open 24 hours a day, the street sellers are drawing shoppers with cheap, crusty bread fresh from wood-burning ovens, the way Neapolitans like it. But police say Naples' new breed of bakers are slowly poisoning their customers by burning old varnished wood, nut shells covered in pesticides and even planks pulled from exhumed coffins.

"Whoever buys this bread is eating dioxins and carcinogenic substances and putting their health at serious risk," said Francesco Borrelli, assessor for agriculture for the province of Naples.

Sounds even worse for your health than walking through garbage-filled streets!

Related Stories:
· Mafia's Car-Boot Bread is "Poisoning" Naples [Guardian, via]
· Naples Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Kliņ]]]> pbb 2008-09-15T12:30:28-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/6/28/25217/8663

You'd be hard-pressed to find a bad pizza in Naples. Even the most hole-in-the-wall joints will fire up a crispy Margherita pie with just the right amount of cheese and a dollop of perfectly-seasoned, secret-recipe sauce.

We had our first real Neapolitan pizza at La Piazzetta, a neighborhood restaurant in a "little piazza" near the train station. We spent just $5 on it, which sure beats the $15 we spent on gelato.

If the food hadn't been so good, we might've noticed the overflowing trash bins near our table sooner. They had the potential to make a real stinker of our evening, but thanks to some strategically placed latticework, we were pleasantly distracted. Of course, we're still trying to figure out why the pizzeria was watering its fake ivy.

Related Stories:
· Pizza coverage [Jaunted]
· Italy Travel coverage [Jaunted]]]> CourtScott 2008-07-03T12:00:10-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/6/26/21753/1492

Any Italy travel guide will advise you not to linger in the dodgier section of Naples near the Napoli Centrale train station. But we decided to ignore that suggestion, and after last night's stroll through the littered area, we did find some redeeming qualities. Like Carmine's fireworks bazaar in Piazza Mercato, your one-stop-shop for pyrotechnics and... kiddie tricycles?]]> CourtScott 2008-06-26T12:00:06-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/6/18/125538/957

Is Italy trying to compete with Austria for the next season of "Locked up Abroad," or is kidnapping family members a freaky new European pastime? Either way, the latest news out of Naples makes our skin crawl.

On Sunday it was revealed that a 47-year-old Italian woman, Maria Monaco, was held captive for 18 years in a filthy bedroom outside the southern city. As of late, filth and strange smells have become synonymous with Naples, but one neighbor reported an unusually strong stench near a room in the rural family home. That's where the carabinieri found the victim.

Monaco's relatives reportedly stashed her in the basement in 1990 after she became pregnant with an illegitimate son. Unsurprisingly, she's now being hospitalized for a psychiatric condition and her family, including the 80-year-old granny, are all under investigation.

Related Stories:
· Woman Freed After Being Locked up for 18 Years [AP, via Google]
· Crime coverage [Jaunted]
· Italy Travel coverage [Jaunted]]]> pbb 2008-06-18T13:00:02-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/5/22/113039/031

Earlier this week we encouraged you to hop on Eurofly's cheap NYC-Naples flight for a last minute Amalfi Coast escape. You probably noticed that no where in that post did we say, "Hang around in garbage-filled Naples."

If you've been living in a dumpster you might not have heard, but the city is literally knee-deep in a ten thousand-ton garbage crisis that is stinking and cluttering up the once electrifying Southern Italian city.

In a bold move yesterday, newly elected Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi rode down to Naples on his white horse, vowing at his first official cabinet meeting to clean up the mess and give the city's tourism industry a fighting chance. How? His plan is to open five new dumps, guard them with the military and send anyone who tries to infringe on the operation to jail for a couple years.

To make sure Berlusconi didn't get his shoes dirty on Wednesday, some trash was scooped up before he came to town. Time reminds us that Berlusconi once gave similar quality-of-life orders to Genoa residents who were forced to pull in their hanging laundry before a G8 summit. And we remember how well that turned out...

Related Stories:
· Berlusconi in Naples: Clean-Up Job [Time]
· The Amalfi Coast: A Last Minute Possibility [Jaunted]

[Photo: taras bulba]]]> CourtScott 2008-05-22T15:15:01-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/