Italy Guide
Campania
Via San Gregorio Armeno
Via San Gregorio Armeno leads down to the other main axis of the old centre from here, and is one of the old city's most picturesque streets, lined with places specializing in the making of presepi or Christmas cribs – a Neapolitan tradition kept up to this day, although the workshops along here turn them out more or less all year round. The often-inventive creations now incorporate modern figures into the huge crib scenes, which can contain moving water features, illuminated pizza ovens and tons of moss and bark. On the right, the church of San Gregorio Armeno (Mon & Wed– Fri 9am– noon, Tues 9am–12.45pm, Sat & Sun 9am–12.30pm) is a sumptuous Baroque edifice with frescoes above the entrance by the late seventeenth-century Neapolitan artist Luca Giordano, not to mention two stupendously ornate gilded organs, one on each side of the nave.