Admission ticket for Napoli Sotterranea, descend 40 meters below the historic center of Naples

About this activity

Naples Underground Entrance Ticket and Guided Tour (English, Italian)

Enjoy a fascinating guided tour of the city's underground Naples.

Your guide will lead you through 2,400 years of history , from the ancient Greeks to modern times, revealing the "womb" of Naples from an archaeological, historical, anthropological and geological point of view. The tour includes, among many other things, a visit to the Aqueduct Greek-Roman , to the remains of the Roman theatre and to the Summa Cavea , a new fragment of the newly revived Roman theater.

In addition to the guide who will take you through the dungeon, you can follow the guided tour in Italian or English or in other languages thanks to thefree multilingual app which you can download at the beginning of your visit. You can take photos along the way.

San Gaetano Square, heart of downtown Naples in the neighborhood of San Lorenzo, in addition to housing the basilica of San Lorenzo Maggiore and the basilica of San Paolo, allows travel to two thousand years back in time.

History of St. Gaetano Square

San Gaetano has been over the millennia the quintessential center of Naples: in Greek times there stood theAgora while in the Roman one the space of the square was occupied by the forum.

In the square formerly the twelve city fraternities (a fratria is a fellowship of families that are supposed to have a common progenitor) and always here in the center of Naples foreign ambassadors and Roman emperors were received with pomp and circumstance.

It was always in this square that Neapolitans flocked to arms to defend the city from the attack of Saracens and Longobardi. In addition to wielding arms to defend the city, the square was also used for administrative affairs. The Seats of Naples were nothing more than city administrative institutions whose representatives met to discuss and achieve the common good.

In addition to the story in daylight, there are millennia of history to be discovered underground in the arcane Naples Underground.

Naples Underground, a millennial journey.

In the heart of the historic center of San Gaetano Square, from the entrance located at No. 68 you can access the official route of the Naples Underground Association, a guided tour of the underground to take a millennia-long journey from Greek to modern times, where the remains of the Greco-Roman aqueduct and theater and even the air-raid shelters dug underground during World War II.

You can also visit the War Museum, the Arianna Seismic Station and the Hypogean Gardens. This Naples has a history almost as rich in detail as the square above if not more: there are reports of artifacts found here dating back some 5,000 years.

Beginning in the 3rd century B.C., the Greeks began digging underground to obtain the tufa blocks needed for the walls and temples of Neapolis, as well as obtaining a series of burial hypogea. During Roman times, during the Augustan era to be precise, the Romans provided the city with a network of aqueducts very complex that was able to bring water to Naples from the headwaters of the Serino, a waterway located 70 km away. L'roman aqueduct managed to meet the city's water needs until the early 16th century, and to overcome the structural limitations of the historic aqueduct, the Neapolitan nobleman Cesare Carmignano built a new aqueduct. Underground aqueducts were used until the early 20th century and then were shelved.

The underground network of tunnels and cisterns was used for the defense of the city's inhabitants: during the World War II basements were adapted as air raid shelters to escape the numerous bombings that hit the city.

Evidence of the use of aqueducts as air raid shelters he Greek and Roman remains remind us of the soul of the city of Naples, where tales of millennia of history can be read on every stone. The remains of the Greek Roman Theater.

Part of the excursion to the Naples Underground includes a visit to the remains of a Greco-Roman theater. Between the Cinquesanti and Anticaglia alleys, one enters a Neapolitan basement, in which, under the typical bed, a trapdoor opens leading to the cellar where one can see these amazing remains that seem perfectly integrated with today's dwellings; even at one time these remains served as foundations for the construction of roads, palaces, and other architecture useful for the road system.