Because, Bonzo, the Bay Of Naples is the centre of the Earth, the beginning and the end of everything. Naples is a scruffy, lively, vibrant, criminal, romantic, beautiful place that makes (nay, invented) the finest pizzas on the planet and it has an amazing archaeological museum. Just up the road you have Pompei, Herculaneum and Stabiae. Watch out for the beggars on the Circumvesuviana railway to Sorrento but marvel at the cheapness of the fare. The world's finest pasta is made nearby in Gragnano. Just over the peninsula is the Amalfi Coast, a crowded heaven on Earth. You can go on a boat, preferably a little 16-seater, to Capri. Do that trip before you die. And you can go to the top of Vesuvio and wander through the Campi Flegrei and walk on the level into a volcano at La Solfatara. And if you go in summer the sun will beam on you but you won't burn to a frazzle. Over two million people live within a few miles of Vesuvio, a thoroughly beautiful and fertile mountain that has probably finished blowing its fuse now. See it from Marina Grande in Sorrento across the misty bay at sunset. The two million all hope I'm right. Some of them live in slums and squalor and don't live there by choice. But go and spend a couple of weeks in the area and be prepared to be swept off your feet. Pliny the Elder loved it so much that he died there in 79. And there's a hell of a good gelateria in Sorrento...