Stairway of the Petraio descent

This guide to the Stairway of the Petraio descent in Naples traces the route back to its origin as a stream bed, cut by rainwater pouring off the Vomero hill long before anyone paved it, and the name Petraio it earned from the loose stone the water left behind. It follows farmers and herders who once used the channel as a shortcut to the markets below, and the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century work that set the loose stones into steps and walls as villas filled the neighborhood. Look at the moss pushing through the cracks between the lava-stone blocks as you descend, and keep an eye on the gulf opening ahead, with Capri and Sorrento visible on a clear day.