Mercato Pignasecca
Open-air street market where a legendary cursed pine tree once stood, now packed with fish, produce and fried street food.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Mercato Pignasecca in Naples opens with a puzzle: the name means dried pine, yet there isn't a single pine tree here, alive or dead. It traces the joke back five hundred years, to when this stretch behind the new Via Toledo was orchard and pine grove, flattened for the road except for one tree left standing where you're walking now, and to the magpies that nested in it and started stealing rings and coins from nearby windows. Neighbors complained loudly enough that the archbishop himself got involved. Stall by stall, the market that replaced the grove is still filling the same ground today, with crates of fish, mountains of vegetables and fried anchovies sold faster than you can follow.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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