Naples Things to Do

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At the end of Via San Gregorio Armeno (which leads off Via dei Tribunali) you will find the Basilica of San Lorenzo Maggiore.

The church itself is worth a look, dating from the 13th and 14th century although with a much later facade.

But it is the excavations underneath the church and adjacent convent which are most important, imo. Where else but Naples can you walk from the present-day surface down into Roman and Greek streets whose buildings still stand two storeys high?

You start in the convent courtyard, where there are the excavated remains of a temple. You can enter some of the convent rooms...beautifully decorated and very important in their time. But when you go downstairs to the excavations...only open since 1992m, after work which had taken 25 years...you will see something very special indeed.

About half the original Roman marketplace has been excavated. You will walk upon the same streets as Neopolitans of the past and see the buildings which show both their original Greek structure and later Roman additions. There's a 'bank' (still with the holes for its iron grille, a 'safe' and a clear place to queue), cafes (with ovens perfectly preserved and even a serving hatch for customers to collect their food), laundries, shops....a cistern for rainwater (arched over with stones, something the Romans knew how to do but the Greeks apparently did not0, a fish market with stone slabs looking exactly the same as those I saw in the Cinque Terre villages...

When I visited I was given a guided tour by a very keen young volunteer, enthusiastic about practising his English. He was a most pleasant young man but I really would have preferred to have taken my own time. A guide will certainly help if you know little about archaeology or about hoe the Romans lived, but is not otherwise necessary imo.

This is also an unmissable experience, I think..and one which is likely to be more appealing for children than the wonderful Archaeological Museum.

San Lorenzo is open 0930-1730 every day except Sunday, when it is open 0930-1330. there is an entrance fee for everything other than the church itself; I *think* I paid 9 euro but cannot find the receipt. The experience is worth the entrance fee, imo.

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Yes, you must go.. even if this is the only thing you visit in Naples. The museum is housed in a rather magnificent 1586, originally the headquarters for the University of Naples and later used as a cavalry barracks before being turned into a museum during the late 1700s.

The best sculptures, paintings and mosaics from Pompeii, Herculaneum and the other ancient sites are gathered here (and other things too). That does not, of course, mean you will see them all; there are simply far, far too many of them.

And you may well find, as I did, that some galleries are closed for restoration or renovation or re-exhibition or...well, just because they are closed (lack of staff, perhaps?).

But even so you will see the most magnificent things: vast sculptures, intricately-detailed sculptures, amazingly-skilful sculptures.......incredible mosaics made fromn the tiniest of tiny stone pieces or (a style I'd not come across before) larger slices of black and white stone...cases of glass vessels (some of which could have been produced yesterday), of ironwork, of pottery...and a whole hall of magnificent centrepieces from the superb frescoes found in the richest buildings destroyed in the Vesuvian eruption of AD79.

There's a 'secret cabinet' as well. It contains the rudest of the frescoes and artefacts from Pompeii, considered in the past to be inappropriate for general public viewing and, even now, considered inappropriate for general public viewing. You can gain access (if you are over 14) by asking at the information desk but I did not know that before I arrive at the iron gates to the room, and I simply couldn't be bothered to go all the way down, ask, and come all the way back up again.

This place is absolutely unmissable if you have any interest whatsoever in ancient sites and ancient lives. Even if you have visited Pompeii, Herculaneum Oplontis and so on you still need to go because those sites have been stripped of the artefacts which really demonstrate both their wealth and the wealth of Roman culture in AD79.

See my mosaic photos here and my sculpture photos here and here

Open 0900 -1930 every day except Tuesday. Closed 25th December, 1st January, 1st May.

Entrance in October 2011 was 6.50 euro. Note that credit/debit cards are *not* accepted. There are audioguides available for hire at 5 euro.

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You access the basilica of Santa Maria Restituta via the Duomo itself. Although once a separate church, the two buildings are now one.

SM Restituta is the oldest structure in modern Naples, a church which was first erected under Emperor Constantine in the 3rd century (200s). As soon as you enter you can feel its age: the columns supporting the roof came from a Roman temple which stood on the same site.

It's a lovely place, its side-chapels decorated in styles over the centuries. One in particular (on the far left, as you look towards the altar) has the most beautiful mosaic apse, with golden touches which reminded me very much of the early Byzantine mosaic work I have seen in similarly old Christian structures.

But SM Restituta has more for you to uncover, for its 4th century (300s) baptistry has been restored and renovated. You'll have to pay a small fee (1.50 euro in 2011) to enter, but it is worth it to see the 5th century (400s) frescoes and the vast stone font which, it is thought, originally came from a temple to Dionysus. Look at it, cast your mind back almost 2000 years, see believers undergoing total immersion when they were accepted into the faith...

Like almost all the centro storico, the Duomo is built on top of the Graeco-Roman city. You can access these excavations from SM Restituta (a Roman street, an earlier church with mosaic floors) but, unfortunately, when I visited the excavations were closed. It was not clear whether this was an ongoing closure.

I was unclear about whether photography is actually allowed in SM Restituta, but noticed others taking photos without comment from staff.

Naples' Duomo dates from the 1200s, although to be perfectlky honest you have to look hard to see evidence of that nowadays. The facade dates from the 1800s and there interior dates from...well, almost any time in between those dates.

No photos are allowed on the interior, which is a great pity as the chapel of San Gennaro, Naples' patron saint whose blood miraculously liquefies three times a year, is a stunning example of ornate ebullience. If his blood does not liquefy then disaster will fall upon Naples...and, apparently, this has happened most recently in 1944 (Vesuvius' last eruption), 1980 (when there was an earthquake) and in 1988 (Naples lost an important football match...not quite in the same league as earthquakes and eruptions, perhaps!).

San Gennaro's chapel is but one of several within the church itself, and 'his' bones are on display in the rather lovely crypt.

For me, the highlight of my Duomo visit was the first 'chapel' on the left as you enter. Actually it's a church in itself, the basilica of Santa Maria Restituta...and that basilica is why the Duomo is a 'must-see', imo. See tip below.

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Naples' historical centre is absolutely fascinating.

It's a rabbit-warren of narrow streets and arched alleyways, decrepit buildings, tiny shops, cobbles, hidden courtyards..... and a vibrant atmosphere.

Naples centro storico is literally built on top of Graeco-Roman Naples...underneath your feet lie two-storey-high Roman streets, temples, theatres, cisterns, water-channels... The two main streets (Via dei Tribunali and Via San Biagio dei Librai, follow the exact lines of the Roman decumanus major and decumanus inferior (and those original streets still lie below).

But in modern centro storico you'll find shops selling everything you could possibly desire (from junk to one-off artworks), scooters picking their way through the crowds, trolleys making deliveries, people shopping, neighbours chatting,children wandering home from school, cafe staff taking trays of espresso orders to and from local offices, tiny street shrines, odd bits of Roman stonework cannibalised and re-used.....and, everywhere, the iconic (to me, anyway) Neopolitan sight of washing lines strung across the streets.

Absolutely unmissable. I could have spent all day just wandering this area of Naples.

It's a maelstrom of crowded humanity but absolutely wonderful to explore.

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This is another of the many churches in the historic centre of Naples, but we visited not to see the church itself but what lies beneath it - an original Roman market, about half of which has so far been excavated.

Entry here was a little confusing. You go in through a door which is signposted to the museum, and up some stairs to a desk where you pay for entry to both that and the excavations, but if like us you’re only interested in visiting the latter you then have to retrace your steps almost to the exit and turn right into the cloisters. Follow the occasional signs “Scavi” to find the steps down to the archaeological finds.

The first layer you come to is part of a medieval shop; beyond this you descend further to find yourself walking on a Roman street. Small signs indicate the nature of the various shops that you pass, e.g. a laundry.

This market place is the only large-scale Greek-Roman site excavated in the downtown area, and as such may be worth a visit, but if you’ve already been to Pompeii and Herculaneum you may find, as we did, that it’s rather less interesting. Still it’s worth a short detour and the €5 asked for entry. And if you can’t get to those more famous sites, or find them over-run with crowds, this is a good little spot in which to pause and imagine yourself back in Roman days.

Opening hours during the week are 9.00 – 13.00 and 15.30 – 17.30, and at the week-end 9.00 – 13.30. No photography is allowed, hence the scanned ticket, but I must confess I sneaked one (photo 2), though I was careful not to use flash which could damage the stones if too many people used it.

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The Teatro di San Carlo is an opera house in Naples, Italy, the oldest still active in Europe and it is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The theatre designed by the architects Giovanni Antonio Medrano and Angelo Carasale for the Bourbon monarch Charles III of Naples (Carlo III in Italian). Charles wanted to endow Naples with a new and larger theatre to replace the old and dilapidated Teatro San Bartolomeo of 1621.

The theatre was inaugurated on the 4 November 1737 — the king’s name day — with a performance of Domenico Sarro’s Achille in Sciro, an opera based on the play by the famous poet and dramatist who went by the name of Metastasio. Sarro also conducted the orchestra in two ballets as intermezzi, created by Grossatesta. At the time, it was the largest opera house in the world, seating 3,300.

The new theatre was much admired for its architecture, its gold decorations, and the sumptuous blue upholstery (blue and gold being the official colours of the Bourbons).

In the small town of Gragnano there is a mill valley which allows you to redescover some ancient traditions which made the town the main centre of the “white art”. The road to reach the valley begins behind the bell-tower of Corpus Domini church, in the town centre. Along Vernotico stream 25water-mills for the grind stone of wheat were already working in the middle age and continued till last century. The mill activity increased until becoming the main source of meal supplying for ovens in Naples. The factories of “long dough” were first beside the mills, then, they supplanted them starting up the end of XVII and above all in XVIII. The manufacture of pasta, which needed bran of hard wheat, became the best in Naples kingdom. Its success was helped by some good circumstances like abundance of pure water, a quite humid and windy climate and capability of excellent workers who used to work wheat by products and who became artists creating “the white art”.
Some mills, even if in ruins, are still today a visible in the rich vegetation and Monaco mill, Ponte di castello mill, Zi’Cesare mill, Grotticella mill, Forma mill…generate a very suggestive landscape. The valley ends up with an appreciated water source, the “forma”.
The tradition still goes on. Actually there are several pasta factories (Garofalo, Faella…) many of those can also be visited. The secret of their success is the use of ancient techniques during some phases of working , like natural drying process and bronze draw-plates for different shapes of pasta. Every two years in September they prepare a “Museum of Pasta” near S.Michael cloister in S.Croce street, where are saved ancient utensils and essential pasta machines, like for example the fans for drying pasta, different sized balances, different bronze draw-plates for the several shapes of pasta, paper for the end-packaging of products like the unforgettable “light blue-paper” and much more. One of the main exhibitions is “Maccaroni feast” usually in September.
[Egicom05]