Menu iv. — Naples

Napoli
e dintorni.

An hour from base by train: the messiest, loudest, best-fed city in Italy. The Pompeii-Herculaneum-Vesuvius day lives in Daily Specials — this page is about the city itself.

To Napoli Centrale
≈ 60 min by car / 25 min by train
To MANN
10 min walk from Centrale
To Cappella Sansevero
via Spaccanapoli
Best done
by train
Naples and the Bay of Naples
Spaccanapoli & the centro storico
I

Spaccanapoli & the centro storico

A city you visit on foot, from Napoli Centrale outward — and the easy way to get there from Sant'Agata is the train from Caserta or Maddaloni-Marcianise. Fifteen minutes regional, ten minutes high-speed; the historic centre's spine, Spaccanapoli, starts more or less at the station and runs straight to the sea.

Plan for crowds, motorbikes, and stroller-hostile cobbles — the carrier is the right choice for an old-town day. Avoid driving in: the city's traffic is its own weather system.

II

Cappella Sansevero — the Veiled Christ

The single most jaw-dropping sculpture in southern Italy: Giuseppe Sanmartino's Cristo Velato (1753), a life-size marble Christ under a veil carved so thin you forget for a second you're looking at stone. The private chapel that holds it, wedged into a side street off Spaccanapoli, was the burial chapel of the Prince of San Severo — a Mason, an alchemist, an inventor of legends.

Timed entry, book online a week ahead. The chapel takes about twenty minutes; no photographs inside.

Napoli Sotterranea — the underground city
III

Napoli Sotterranea — the underground city

Forty metres below Spaccanapoli, the city's other city: a network of Greek-cut tuff quarries that became Roman aqueducts, became WWII bomb shelters, became now-tours. The standard guided visit (Piazza San Gaetano entrance) takes you through the aqueduct passages with handheld candles in a few claustrophobic stretches — small kids may or may not enjoy this, but it photographs as you'd hope.

Reservations recommended in summer. Wear shoes you don't mind on damp stone.

IV

MANN — Museo Archeologico Nazionale

The Pompeii treasures live here, not at Pompeii — the Secret Cabinet of erotic frescoes, the Farnese Hercules in his hall alone, the Battle of Issus mosaic from the House of the Faun that you've seen on every Roman-history book cover. The Bourbon-era inheritance of Naples, and the single best reason to visit the city for an art-leaning grandmother.

Allow half a day, more if combining with the chapel and a pizza lunch. Closed Tuesdays. The cafeteria handles a stroller break.

MANN — Museo Archeologico Nazionale
Pizza in Naples
V

Pizza in Naples

You can argue forever about which is best, and Italians do. The reliable three: L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele on Via Cesare Sersale (two-pizza menu, line at noon), Sorbillo on Via dei Tribunali (faster line, broader menu), and di Matteo on the same street (where Bill Clinton famously stopped). The Margherita at any of them is what "pizza in Naples" means.

Most don't take reservations for lunch. Arrive at 11:30 to eat by noon, or at 12:30 to wait an hour. The Margherita is €5-6.

Campania countryside

Image credits

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