Guided tour of underground Naples
Underground Naples is the city's most famous and fascinating route. Guides will take you on a journey across 2400 years of history, from the ancient Greeks to modern times, revealing the essence of Naples from an archaeological, historical, anthropological, and geological point of view.
The tour includes a deep look at the Graeco-Roman Aqueduct. After descending 136 comfortable steps, you'll arrive at a depth of approx. 40 meters, where you'll visit some of the tufaceous cavities dug during the Greek era (4th century BCE), which were used as the city's water reservoirs for about 23 centuries. These are large and illuminated areas, except for a short stretch - which is optional but very interesting because it's illuminated by candlelight; moreover, the walking surface is smooth and straight. The tour has a duration of about 1 hour. You'll also visit WWII anti-raid shelters, the War Museum and Orti Ipogei, a new Underground Naples project among the various educational and scientific activities offered to its visitors.
Deep in the darkness, 35 meters deep to be exact, of underground Naples, there's life. The initiative was created just before Expo Milano 2015, that was dedicated to food, in order to establish a vegetable garden in the bowels of the earth, a seemingly hostile environment, but far from acid rain, fine particulate pollutants, smog, and harmful microorganisms. It actually protects the cultivation of classic vegetable garden plants. Underground Naples has therefore launched a new botanical experimentation phase for the subsoil. A subsoil which is open not only to Italian and foreign visitors - both young and not so young - but also to scholars and botanical researchers who use the Orti Ipogei for scientific research.
You'll also visit:
Roman Theater Ruins - You'll enter a typical Neapolitan house, commonly known as "basso," because it's located on the city's street level. Once there, you just have to move a bed and open a trapdoor to access the ruins of Neapolis Theater and the places where Nero used to have his private dressing rooms every time he staged his performances in Naples. The tour lasts about 20 minutes.
Summa Cavea - The tour has been recently expanded with a new discovery. In fact, an ancient carpentry gives access to another fragment of the Theater, where you can visit a permanent exhibition of Scarabattoli (a glass stand displaying 17th century sacred images and objects) that host folk nativity scenes. This is the Summa Cavea (intrados) of the Graeco-Roman theater located in Vico Cinquesanti, behind Piazza San Gaetano, Neapolis' ancient market square. A new discovery has been made inside the new section of the Roman theater. There were some small channels running beneath the floor, which were completely clogged by sawdust. The cleaning process revealed Bourbon-era sewer drains made with "riggiole" (tiles) with blue drawings. Those channels are protected by grilles and are visible.