Walk Naples and the map lights up fast

FOG covers the whole world in fog. Every street you physically walk in Naples is revealed permanently, stairs included. No account, no cloud, no tracking.

A Greek grid under a medieval city

The centro storico is still laid out on the plan the Greeks drew. Three long straight decumani run east to west, cut by a ladder of narrow cross lanes. The lowest of them is the one everybody knows as Spaccanapoli, which changes name several times as it goes (Via Benedetto Croce, then Via San Biagio dei Librai). Via dei Tribunali runs parallel above it, and Via Anticaglia above that.

They are canyons. Six storeys of tenement on both sides, three or four metres of stone between, washing overhead, scooters that expect you to move. West of Via Toledo the Quartieri Spagnoli is a different kind of grid, regular in plan but built onto a slope, so half the cross streets are staircases. Above all of it sits the Vomero hill, and below it the sea at Chiaia and Mergellina.

The afternoon route

Start at Piazza Dante and go east along Via dei Tribunali as far as the Duomo. Turn down Via Duomo to the water end, then double back west along Spaccanapoli, which will take you past Piazza San Domenico Maggiore and the Gesù Nuovo. You have now drawn two parallel lines through the oldest part of the city with about twenty cross lanes hanging off them.

Come out onto Via Toledo, climb a few blocks into the Quartieri Spagnoli grid, then drop back down to Piazza del Plebiscito. From there take Via Chiaia and finish on the Lungomare Caracciolo, a pedestrian seafront that runs a couple of flat kilometres out to Mergellina with Vesuvius behind you. If you want the hill, the Pedamentina staircase links Vomero back down to the centre in a few hundred steps.

Dense reward, messy trace

Naples gives you more map per kilometre than almost any city in Europe. The old centre is so tightly packed that a two hour wander through the lanes lights a block of the map that would take a full day in a spread out city. Watching the centro storico go solid is the most satisfying part of walking here.

The honest catch is the signal. Those stone canyons are exactly the conditions that make any phone GPS wander, and on the slopes of the Quartieri or the Sanità the trace can smear a lane or two sideways. It settles if you walk a street more than once. The other thing to plan around is heat. July and August in the lanes are heavy, and the stairs to Vomero are not a summer afternoon activity. Spring and autumn are the season.

How FOG works

The whole world map starts hidden under fog. Only what you physically walk is revealed, and it stays revealed for good. Background exploring keeps running with the app closed and the screen off.

Exploring is free. One purchase of USD 5.99 unlocks unlimited ranks, every character and history import, and there is no subscription. Ranks rise with the area you have covered: Wanderer, Scout, Pathfinder, Explorer, Voyager. City percent tells you how much of Naples you have lit up so far. The collection runs to 241 countries, 3,390 regions and 7,342 named places, earned only by standing in them.

There is no account, no sign-up, no cloud, no analytics, no ads and no tracking. The map never leaves your phone, and you can export your data whenever you like.

Questions people actually ask

Start with a dark map.

FOG is free to explore. No account, no subscription, and your map never leaves your phone.

free to explore · one purchase unlocks everything · never a subscription