This is also a wonderful place, or rather its’ environs are so. The town itself except the great street of Toledo is beastly, but the Quay (on which I live in an excellent hotel with a noble view of the Bay) Mt. Vesuvius which is all red hot every night, Portici, Pausilippum, and the rest of the towns on the sea coasts, form one of the most wonderfully delightful scenes I ever saw. The carnival is now begun, and the town full of plays, masquerades, operas, pickpockets, etc…
Joseph Spence from Naples, 1784-85