1h 30minutes
English, Italian
Unlimited
Road
Suitable for children
Suitable for couples
Pets allowed
Parking available
Barrier-free
Language supports
The Pedamentin is a system of descents and stairways built by architects Tino di Campiono and Francesco de Vito to connect the Certosa di San Martino and Castel Sant'Elmo to the historic center and defend the city in case of sieges. Today it is considered a masterpiece and can be admired from the belvedere. Walking along it you can enjoy a spectacular view of the entire gulf, among gardens and vegetable gardens.
The historic descent is shrouded in mystery: many people swear they have seen a ghost dressed in white walking down the staircase amusing himself by frightening passersby, or again during the night someone says they hear wailing and crying near a ramp where royal guards used to kill enemies, leaving the bodies for the rats.
Walking down this staircase is a unique experience, not only because of the beautiful landscape that can be admired, but also because of the paths attached to this staircase, which seem to suggest the presence of real worlds, quite different from the hustle and bustle of the city.
Indeed, in one of the buildings overlooking the famous staircase, the French poet stayed. Charles Baudelaire. It is also the place where the French poetess Marguerite Yourcenar set his short story "Anna, soror," part of the "Like Flowing Water" trilogy, and set in a late 16th-century Naples.
Despite the splendid in the "underbelly of Naples", so defined by Matilde Serao, today the area is protected by a citizen's committee so that its path can be reevaluated and saved from degradation, and it has also become part of UNESCO's heritage.
Without a shadow of a doubt the Pedamentin thus allows us to discover an alternative Naples, without chaos, silent as never before, but once again surprising and unique.
