It's 5pm on Saturday in Naples and via San Gregorio is packed with people. It is just before Christmas and it seems as if half the city's population has squeezed itself into this one tiny street.

Via San Gregorio is the heart of the Neapolitan Christmas crib - presepe - industry. At this time of year, stalls spill over into the adjoining streets, selling everything you might need to build a nativity scene at home. (Take a basic framework - a rocky landscape with some rudimentary buildings - then populate it with characters, adding new ones year by year.) Neapolitan presepi stretch the traditional story of the birth of Christ to include scenes and characters from everyday life, so tucked away behind the stores, artisans turn out tiny figures of every imaginable type, most costing no more than a few euros.