Naples underground

Forty meters below the characteristic and lively streets of the Historic Center of Naples,  you find a different world, unexplored, isolated by time, but deeply  connected with the world above. It’s the heart of Naples, and the place  from which the city was born. To visit it is to travel to the past, a  world 2400 years old.Every historic epic, from the foundation of  Neopolis, to the bombs of WWII, has left it’s mark on the walls of the  yellow tufa stone, the soul of Naples, and the stone with which the city  was built.                                                                                                                    What you will  visit: Naples is a city of exceptional beauty, a city of art, but few know the underground reality of the city. Naples Underground is the most famous and fascinating guided tour  underneath the city of Naples. Our guides will take you on a journey  through 2,400 years of history, from the ancient Greeks to modern times,  unveiling the “womb” of Naples from an archaeological, historical,  anthropological and geological point of view.

The tour includes:

1) The Greek-Roman Aqueduct.

Going down 136 steps, low and comfortable,  we will reach a depth of about 40 meters below ground, where we will  visit few of the tuffaceous cavities excavated in the Greek era (IV  centuries BC.), and exploited as cisterns for the water supply of our  city for approximately 23 centuries. The environment is spacious and  illuminated, except for a short segment where the tour is optional, but  full of charm because each person is given a candle to light their own  path. Also the walking surface is smooth and straight, and the visit has  a duration of about one hour.

We will also visit the air raid shelters  from the Second World War, the War Museum and the Hypogeum Gardens, a  new project which the association of Naples underground offers to its  visitors as well as multiple educational and scientific activities.

In the darkness of Naples underground, 35 meters deep, in fact, there is life. The initial approach was born during the international event – Expo  Milano 2015 “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life” – dedicated to the  power of Earth: the Hypogeum Gardens is a vegetable garden growing in  the bowels of the earth, a seemingly hostile environment, yet far from  acid rain, pollutants, smog, harmful microorganisms even to human life,  it still protects the cultivations of traditional vegetable plants. Naples Underground has therefore initiated an investigational botany for  the underground, not only open to an audience of Italian and foreign  visitors, students, young and old, but also university researchers and  botanists who use the Hypogeum Gardens for the scientific research. The  project, in fact, is attracting the scientific interest of both national  and International organizations.

Moreover, at no extra charge, we will visit:

1) The remains of the Roman Theater.

We will walk into a typical Neapolitan  house, commonly called “low”, because it is located at street level of  the city. Once inside, just open a hatch underneath a bed for access to  the remains of the ancient theater of Neapolis, where the emperor Nero  also had his private dressing room, whenever he performed his shows in  Naples. The tour lasts about 20 minutes.

2) Summa Cavea

We have recently expanded the tour with a  new discovery. Another fraction of the Roman Theater reappears in an old  carpentry in which there is a permanent exhibition of “Scarabattoli”  (glass kiosk exhibiting images and sacred objects sec. XVII) to preserve  the nativity scenes and the popular manger. All around, opus  reticulatum and latericium. We are right beneath the Roman intrados of  an arch -summa auditorium of the Greek theater- located in Cinquesanti  alley behind San Gaetano square, a remote agora of Neapolis. Inside the  new fragment of the Roman theater just brought back to life, a new  discovery was made. Underneath the floor, there were small running water  channels which were completely clogged by the material generated by the  circular saw. Once cleaned up, the channels revealed to be drain sewers  from the Bourbon period, made out of “riggiole” (tiles) with blue color  designs. Those channels were protected by grilles and are visible.