The Gulf of Naples is rightly regarded as one of the world's most beguiling destinations: the vast, boisterous city, curled around the base of the dozing volcano, Vesuvius, peppered with the deep green of lemon trees and cooled by the glistening Tyrrhenian Sea. It could be a metaphor for modern Italy.

Heartbreakingly beautiful, at times chaotic and unruly -- pristine, grubby, cherished and neglected in equal measure. Thousands of years of history grappling with modernity in an endless scrap for supremacy. And all the while, there's the unspoken knowledge that explosive energy bubbles and simmers just below the surface, waiting to erupt.