Naples Underground (Napoli Sotterranea) tickets

How tickets work

You can't wander Napoli Sotterranea on your own. Every visit is a guided group tour run by the Associazione Napoli Sotterranea, and English tours run on the same timetable as Italian ones: on the hour, 10am to 6pm. That makes it one of the easiest underground sites in Naples for non-Italian speakers.

The regular ticket is sold on the spot at Piazza San Gaetano 68, on Via dei Tribunali next to the Basilica of San Paolo Maggiore; look for the white and blue flags. Official prices: €18 full, €15 for ages 11–17, €10 for ages 5–10, free up to age 4. This is a private site, so Italy's state-museum rules don't apply: no free first Sunday, and a disabled visitor's companion pays full price.

The only thing sold online by the association is a skip-the-line ticket with a fixed time. It costs extra, and it is strictly non-refundable: you can't change the date, the time or even the name. If the timed slots are gone, you can still turn up; the association guarantees entry to everyone who queues.

Queue or timed ticket

The association itself puts the wait at anywhere from 10 to 90 minutes when it's busy. With one departure an hour, a full 11am tour means waiting for the noon one. If you're squeezing this in between lunch and a train out of Garibaldi, pay for a fixed time.

Timed tickets come from the association and from resellers: Tiqets, GetYourGuide and Headout all sell a "skip the line + guided tour" product. Expect to pay more than at the desk; in return resellers often still have slots when the official calendar shows nothing, and their cancellation terms are usually more forgiving. Check the meeting point in the listing: the official route starts only at Piazza San Gaetano 68.

Which "Naples Underground" is which

Search for "Naples underground" and you'll find four different things:

• Napoli Sotterranea, Piazza San Gaetano – the association's official route: Greek-era tuff quarries about 40 m down, used as cisterns and then as WWII air-raid shelters, a small war museum, underground gardens and the hidden Roman theatre. The association says any underground tour starting from another address is not theirs.
• Spanish Quarters underground – a separate route run by others, starting in the Quartieri Spagnoli. Handy if you're staying off Via Toledo.
• Galleria Borbonica (Bourbon Tunnel) – near Piazza del Plebiscito; a tunnel dug under the Bourbon kings, with vintage cars and motorbikes recovered from the rubble. Open Friday to Sunday and on holidays only.
• San Lorenzo Maggiore – excavations of the ancient city under the church complex, a few steps from San Gaetano, with its own ticket.

For the tour most people mean, pick Piazza San Gaetano.

What the tour is like

You walk down 136 low steps with handrails to around 40 m below street level. The underground part takes about an hour. Halfway through there's an optional squeeze along a narrow candlelit channel to a cistern still holding water. Skip it if tight spaces bother you; there are benches outside and the group is back in about ten minutes.

Then the guide leads you back up and into a ground-floor home built into the Roman theatre: a bed is moved, a trapdoor opens, and you're in the ruins. Allow about 20 minutes for that, included in your ticket.

Practical tips

• Wear flat shoes and bring a layer, even in summer: it's cool and damp down there.
• No food allowed on the route; a small bottle of water is fine.
• Photos are allowed.
• Not possible with a wheelchair or walker; strollers stay at the entrance.
• From Napoli Centrale: Metro Line 1 to Dante, then walk through Port'Alba, Via San Pietro a Maiella, Piazza Miraglia and Via dei Tribunali to Piazza San Gaetano. Don't trust your phone's map pin: the association warns that Google Maps sends you to the wrong spot.