On my way back from teaching in Lebanon, I decided to see Naples. This is my kind of adventure travel. The hub of Southern Italy, Napoli is a place where life goes on right in the streets. The ever-present laundry hangs high above your head from narrow, tightly-wedged buildings. When it rains, Neapolitans throw plastic covers over the clothes until the sun comes out again. Aside from main streets, everywhere is a maze of back alleys—with long, dark volcanic cobbles courtesy of Mount Vesuvius in the nearby Bay.

Arriving at night in the train station, my friend John and I took our bags up Via Carbonara, and down side streets: dodging people we thought were possible trouble, following printed directions around tiny twists and turns. Soon it looked like we were approaching the Seventh Circle of Hell. At a small piazza, Vicoletto Giganti, the neighbors finally pointed us up to our residence, Dimora dei Giganti (the Giant Apartment) on the fifth floor.

Inside, Stephana and Raffaele, the architects who renovated the place, welcomed us into their dream. Each room had a theme: mine was the Farfalle (butterfly) room with a bed, dresser and an open closet beneath a giant wall tapestry of butterflies. The ceiling-to-floor window overlooked the breezeway around which the other buildings were grouped in the Vicoletto.

The kitchen was elegantly done in space-saving style; looking out the window I could see the neighbor’s lemon tree growing in a pot on their balcony. Each bathroom wall had water blue or sea green Italian ceramic tiles and counters of dark, polished Vesuviana stone. I spent ages admiring the smooth, volcanic beauty of the stone surrounding my sink.

John took the Giant Bonsai room at the other end of the apartment, with doors that opened on a rooftop terrace. Sky blue tiles around flower beds, an earthenware bench and a glass-topped table beckoned. On the terrace, open to the heavens, church bells mingled with the sound of Naples life. This place was a marvel.

Naples has long survived by getting over on the system, so you enter with the idea its “all fair game.” I stashed the valuables in my jacket and locked my purse in my room. Besides pickpockets and con artists, the real challenge in Napoli are the Vespas. Small and sleek, Vespa motorcycles are a popular form of transportation. Neapolitan riders whiz down narrow lanes at speeds equal to the highway. It’s easy to grab a bag from someone’s shoulder and speed away with the contents. The echo of a Vespa is loud—when I heard it, I’d step against a wall.

But on the Naples bus, I slipped behind the ticket box and leaned against a window to watch the city go by from the streets to the port: seething crowds of people, laundry by the colorful line full, home-made shrines to saints and dead relatives, market stalls piled high with live seafood just out of Naples’s Bay. Around castles and boat launches, the bus chugged. The isle of Capri and the vapor-veiled summit of Vesuvius loomed ahead, far beyond the docks.

Napoli is full of small gems. Roaming on Sunday morning, I found myself at 9 a.m. Mass, on the ground floor of San Lorenzo church. Seeing a new face, the priest pointed out the prayer books to me. He delivered his sermon in Italian—slowly, so I could understand him. After Mass I bought tulips from the men selling flowers and nuts on the corner. Wandering across the street, I marveled at the beautiful chocolate arrangements in the shop window as local folks ordered their morning coffee. With the sound of drums, a dozen religious fraternity members marched a tiny parade in the street. Carrying the banner of a patron saint, they went up several blocks playing drums and horns, a Sunday-morning Neapolitan ritual.

After saying buongiorno to the neighbors, I opened the gate to our building and climbed up to prepare breakfast. I sliced Stephana’s lemon bread and juiced oranges. On the terrace, I listened to the sound of Sunday morning in Naples.

That afternoon, John and I headed for Sorrento. My friend John came to Southern Italy to find his roots; his father was an Italian from Reggio-Calabria. On the train, he looked across the aisle to see three women with their assorted-age children.

“Look at those kids over there. For a minute I thought I was looking at my younger self.”

“Hey! I lost you in the train station. I looked around at the crowd and couldn’t pick you out—you just blended in with everyone else. Then suddenly I recognized you when the crowd thinned.”

That’s the secret, I think, to being a ready for a challenge like Napoli. Blend in with everyone else, be prepared and enjoy the ride. You never know what’s around the next corner. It could be a vision of your younger self, beneath the Naples sky.