Naples Underground: the four routes beneath the city, compared

Naples Underground: three names, four different entrances

Search for “Napoli Sotterranea” and you will find three ticket desks in three different parts of the city, each with a sign reading “official route”. It is not a scam: they are three associations holding three separate concessions on three underground systems that do not connect with each other. On top of these there is the Neapolis Sotterrata, the Roman market beneath the church of San Lorenzo Maggiore, which sits on the same square as Napoli Sotterranea and gets mistaken for its entrance at least once a day.

The cost varies little: from €9 at San Lorenzo to €18 for the guided Napoli Sotterranea tour on the partner platforms (prices checked regularly). What varies a great deal is what you see, when you can get in and whether you need to book. This page puts the four routes side by side so you can decide in two minutes.

The table for deciding at a glance

Official prices according to napolisotterranea.org, galleriaborbonica.com, lanapolisotterranea.it (the LAES booking platform) and laneapolissotterrata.it, consulted regularly.

Napoli Sotterranea (piazza San Gaetano): the Greco-Roman aqueduct

This is the route most people mean. The entrance is marked by white and blue flags on via dei Tribunali, next to the Basilica of San Paolo Maggiore; be warned that Google Maps gets the location wrong, as the official site itself points out. You go down 121 low, wide steps and arrive 40 metres below ground, in the tuff quarries from which the Greeks cut the stone to build the city and which the Romans turned into an aqueduct.

The main route takes about an hour: cisterns as tall as cathedrals, a stretch of tunnel half a metre wide to be walked by candlelight (optional: anyone who would rather not waits for the group on a bench for ten minutes or so), the Roman cistern still holding water, the war museum in the air-raid shelters of 1943, and the underground gardens where the association grows plants without sunlight. The ticket also includes a visit to the remains of the Roman Theatre swallowed up by the houses of the neighbourhood: you enter through a ground-floor “basso”, a trapdoor is lifted and you climb down into the dressing rooms where, according to tradition, Nero prepared for the stage. Allow an extra 20 minutes.

Departures in Italian and English are every hour from 10am to 6pm. Under 10 people there is no need to book: you join the queue and take the next slot. The problem is the queue. The official ticket office states that the wait runs from 10 to 90 minutes in busy periods, and sells a skip-the-line ticket with a fixed time for €18 (€15 for ages 11 to 24, €10 for ages 5 to 10), with a surcharge on the regular price and no possibility of refund or date change. On Thursdays there is also a 9pm departure, by reservation only and with a minimum of 10 participants.

Galleria Borbonica: the king’s tunnel and the vintage cars

A completely different story and a completely different part of town. The Galleria Borbonica is the passage that Ferdinand II had dug in 1853, to a design by Errico Alvino, to link the Royal Palace with the area of via Morelli and via Santa Lucia by passing beneath Monte Echia, an underground viaduct also conceived as an escape route for the court. The tunnel cuts through the Renaissance cisterns of the Bolla aqueduct, which the Bourbon engineers crossed with three masonry bridges still visible today. In the Second World War it became an air-raid shelter, then the city’s court impound: hence the cars and motorbikes from the fifties and sixties and the fragments of statues you meet along the route.

The Standard Route (also called the Classic Tour) lasts about an hour and runs only on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays at 10am, 12pm, 3pm and 5pm. On weekdays the tunnel is closed to the public, except for private tours on request (from 9am to 6pm, with a quote by email). The full ticket costs €15, €10 for ages 6 to 18 and over 70s, €7 for people with disabilities, free up to age 5; booking is mandatory (data from galleriaborbonica.com). Two entrances: via Domenico Morelli 61, inside the Parcheggio Morelli (the only one accessible by wheelchair, for 60% of the route), and vico del Grottone 4, a hundred metres or so from piazza del Plebiscito. There are also the Via delle Memorie, Adventure (with a raft across the cisterns) and Speleo routes, with different times and prices.

Two useful discounts: anyone presenting a ticket for the Complex of San Lorenzo Maggiore at the Galleria’s desk gets 20% off the full-price Standard Route ticket, and Campania Artecard holders get a reduction. If you are weighing up the card, the page on the Campania Artecard does the sums for you.

Spanish Quarter underground (LAES): the most intimate route

The third underground site is also called “Napoli Sotterranea”, but it is run by the LAES association, active since 1988 and recognised by the Campania Region. The meeting point is in front of Caffè Gambrinus in piazza Trieste e Trento, the actual entrance is at vico Sant’Anna di Palazzo 52, in the first alley of the Spanish Quarter, and the exit is on via Chiaia. Below you find Greek cisterns and Second World War shelters, with graffiti and objects left behind by the people who took refuge there; the guide tells the story of the city above and the city below in parallel.

The visit lasts about 60 minutes. The timetable does not change through the year: Monday to Friday at 10am, 12pm, 2pm and 4:30pm, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays at 10am, 11am, 12pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4:30pm and 6pm (the footer of the website lists a shorter schedule, but it is the LAES booking platform that confirms these slots for the tour in Italian; the English tour leaves at 10am, 12pm, 2pm and 4:30pm every day). Booking is required and can be done online, by phone or at the ticket desk. On the official platform the guided ticket costs €15 for adults (from age 13) and €7 for children aged 7 to 12; the tour is in Italian, English and Spanish, does not admit wheelchairs or children under 6 and is not recommended for anyone with mobility difficulties. For those who suffer from claustrophobia there is an alternative route that avoids the narrow tunnels. If you are already touring the Spanish Quarter and the Maradona mural (here is the guide to the Spanish Quarter and the Maradona mural), this is the underground site that costs you the least time.

Neapolis Sotterrata: the Roman market beneath San Lorenzo Maggiore

On the same piazza San Gaetano, but on the opposite side from Napoli Sotterranea, the Monumental Complex of San Lorenzo Maggiore preserves an entire slice of the Roman city beneath its cloister: a street lined with shops, the cryptoporticus and the macellum, the covered market. It is not a tunnel, it is a street you walk along, and you visit it on your own with the information panels (or with the audio guide included in the Tiqets ticket). Above are the Gothic basilica, the chapter house and the Museo dell’Opera.

Open every day from 9:30am to 5:30pm; full ticket €9, reduced €7 for Artecard holders, teachers, university students and over 65s, €6 for under 18s, free under 6 (according to laneapolissotterrata.it). It is the cheapest of the four and the only one without departure times: perfect as a filler if you have just come out of Napoli Sotterranea and still have an hour before lunch. The other monuments in the area are gathered in palaces, castles and churches of Naples.

How to reach each entrance by metro

• Napoli Sotterranea and San Lorenzo Maggiore: Metro Line 1 from Garibaldi to Dante (8 minutes), then via Port’Alba, via San Pietro a Maiella, piazza Miraglia and via dei Tribunali as far as piazza San Gaetano: a 10-minute walk. Alternatively Line 2 to Cavour and walk down via Duomo, or Line 1 to Museo. From the airport: Alibus to piazza Garibaldi and then Line 1.
• Galleria Borbonica: Metro Line 1 to Toledo or Municipio, then a 10–12 minute walk towards piazza del Plebiscito; for vico del Grottone go up via Gennaro Serra from the right-hand side of the square (with the Royal Palace behind you), it is the second turning on the left. For the via Morelli entrance head towards piazza Vittoria. From the port and the Alibus get off at piazza Municipio.
• Spanish Quarter (LAES): Metro Line 1 to Toledo, a 5-minute walk along via Toledo to piazza Trieste e Trento. The Centrale funicular (Augusteo station) also drops you two minutes away.

Fares and the metro map are on the page about getting around Naples.

How much time you need and in what order to do them

A single route takes an hour and a half door to door. The historic centre offers two on the same square: Napoli Sotterranea at 10am or 11am and then San Lorenzo Maggiore, with lunch on via dei Tribunali and the Sansevero Chapel in the afternoon (the guide to the Sansevero Chapel and the Veiled Christ explains why it has to be booked days in advance). The Galleria Borbonica and LAES, on the other hand, are on the other side of the centre, in Chiaia and around the Plebiscito, and pair well with each other at the weekend: Galleria at 12pm, Spanish Quarter at 2pm or 4:30pm.

Do not attempt all four in one day. These are damp spaces at 15–16 degrees with a lot of stairs: after the second one the cisterns start to blur together. Bring a sweatshirt even in August and flat shoes; your phone is torch enough wherever the candle is not compulsory.

Tickets: official or partner?

For Napoli Sotterranea the difference between the desk and the partners is the guaranteed time slot. At the desk you will get in regardless, but in high season you can wait over an hour under the sun on via dei Tribunali. The €18 partner ticket includes the guided visit (which you get at the desk anyway) and assigns you a departure; the official skip-the-line ticket does the same thing at the same price, €18, and with no refund. If you book online, in either case, check that the route is named “Napoli Sotterranea – piazza San Gaetano” and not one of the other two.

For the Galleria Borbonica the partner price matches the official one, €15: the advantage is purely practical (calendar and payment in a single app, cancellation under the partner’s rules). Remember that it only opens Friday to Sunday: if your weekend in Naples is already full, you cannot make it up on Monday.

For the Spanish Quarter underground the partner ticket costs €18 against €15 on the LAES platform; you pay €3 for the flexible booking. If your dates are fixed, book direct.

San Lorenzo Maggiore: €9 at the desk, €9 on GetYourGuide, €10 on Tiqets with the audio guide included. Here the partner only makes sense for the audio guide.

The alternatives: evening tour and walking tours with an underground stop

If you want Napoli Sotterranea without any other group, there is an exclusive visit after closing time, two hours for €45, which runs with very few places and very few reviews: worth it for a special evening, not for saving money. Those who would rather fold the underground into a tour of the historic centre will find two walks of 2.5–3 hours that combine via dei Tribunali, Spaccanapoli and a descent into an underground site for €29–31.50: they cost more than a single ticket but also cover the city above. Comparison and details on the page about walking and private tours.

What is near piazza San Gaetano

Back above ground you are surrounded by the best of the historic centre: via San Gregorio Armeno with its nativity-scene workshops, the Cathedral with the Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro five minutes away, the Sansevero Chapel at seven, the MANN ten minutes uphill along via Costantinopoli (guide to the MANN, National Archaeological Museum). If you want to stay on the subterranean theme, the Catacombs of San Gennaro are something else again, early Christian galleries in the Sanità district with a compulsory guided visit: the guide to the Catacombs of San Gennaro is separate. To fit everything into one or two days use the 1, 2 and 3-day itineraries.

In short: which Naples Underground to book

First time in Naples and just one underground site: Napoli Sotterranea in piazza San Gaetano, with a booked departure if you are coming between April and October or over a long weekend. Second visit, or a weekend based in Chiaia: Galleria Borbonica, but only Friday to Sunday and with a reservation. Short on time and near the Plebiscito: the Spanish Quarter underground. Tight budget: Neapolis Sotterrata at €9, with no set times. All partner prices are checked regularly and change with the season: check availability for the time slot you need before planning the rest of your day.