Tours
Naples old town
The Greek street grid is still there, and much of it is closed to traffic: you walk it, and the car waits at the edge.
Via dei Tribunali in Naples, arcades and shops beneath the old buildings.
- Visit
- a full day
- Pairs with
- Pompeii, Herculaneum
The old town of Naples still follows the plan of the Greek city: Via dei Tribunali and Via San Biagio dei Librai run parallel to each other, two of the three decumani. The whole quarter is a limited-traffic zone, and Via dei Tribunali is a pedestrian area, so the old town is walked.
The day works two ways. If you are already in Naples, the car picks you up at the time you set and stays with you: it drops you at the edge of the old town, waits, and runs you down to the seafront or up the hill when you are done. Coming from Rome it is about two and a half hours each way, so you start earlier.
Photo: Armando Mancini · CC BY-SA 2.0
What you see
The decumani
Via dei Tribunali and Via San Biagio dei Librai, the street Neapolitans call Spaccanapoli, are two of the three parallel streets of the Greek city. Via dei Tribunali is closed to traffic: a designated pedestrian area.
The Sansevero Chapel
Inside is Giuseppe Sanmartino’s Veiled Christ: a life-size marble figure commissioned by Raimondo di Sangro, the shroud carved from the same block as the body. Booking is compulsory and online only.
The seafront
Via Partenope is a pedestrian area, so you walk it with the sea on one side and Castel dell’Ovo and Borgo Marinari ahead; Borgo Marinari is pedestrian too. This is the other half of the day, reached by car from the old town.
Piazza del Gesù
A pedestrian square at the western end of Spaccanapoli, and a practical place to be dropped before walking into the old town. The car cannot enter the square itself; it stops just outside.
Photo: DimiTalen · CC0
Getting there with us
- The old town is a limited-traffic zone. Among the vehicles allowed in, the city of Naples lists public transport of all kinds, including taxis and chauffeur-driven hire cars: the car can go in.
- A limited-traffic zone is not a right of way to every door. Via dei Tribunali and Via Francesco De Sanctis, the Sansevero Chapel’s own street, are pedestrian areas: you are dropped at the edge and walk in.
- Everywhere else the car stays with you — old town to seafront, and back to the hotel when you have had enough.
Worth knowing
- Book the Sansevero Chapel before you travel: online only, with a date and a time slot, and a capped number of entries a day. Photography inside is not allowed.
- The limited-traffic-zone gates run for much of the day and the hours differ from gate to gate; the city of Naples publishes them.
- Most of this day is spent walking on streets closed to cars. Comfortable shoes matter more than anything else.
- What is on offer here is the transport. Explaining the places is the job of a licensed tourist guide, booked separately.
On the same day
Pompeiifrom Naples 40minA Roman city of 66 hectares, some 50 excavated: forum, painted houses, an amphitheatre from 70 BC. Open air, on ancient paving.
Herculaneumfrom Naples 25minFour and a half hectares of Roman town under the modern one: upper floors still standing, charred wood, the ancient beach with its boat sheds.