Naples rewards a thin wallet: its cathedral, its bone-filled ossuary and its grandest churches charge nothing, street food runs €2–4, and a €1.30 transport ticket buys you both an underground art museum and a terrace over Vesuvius.
Naples' cathedral costs nothing to enter (08:30–13:00, 14:30–19:30). The Cappella del Tesoro di San Gennaro holds the saint's blood ampoules, and the 4th-century Santa Restituta — the city's oldest church — sits inside the nave.
A tufa quarry in the Sanità holding roughly 40,000 plague and cholera dead, stacked in bone walls three metres high. Entry is free, 10:00–17:00, closed Tuesdays. Neapolitans once adopted anonymous skulls here in exchange for favours.
Free entry to a church hidden behind a 15th-century palace façade of pyramid-cut piperno stone. Inside are Solimena frescoes and the shrine of Giuseppe Moscati, its rooms lined floor to ceiling with thousands of silver ex-voto plaques.
The seaside fortress on the islet of Megaride is free to enter — ramparts, vaulted halls and the widest sunset view across the gulf to Vesuvius. Below it, the fishing harbour of Borgo Marinari costs nothing to wander.
The loudest fish market in Naples runs from the medieval gate along Via Sopramuro, roughly 08:00–14:00. Anchovies, mussels and octopus sold by the kilo, plus taralli 'nzogna e pepe stands and stalls of contraband household junk.
Via dei Tribunali 94, frying since 1936 and where Bill Clinton ate in 1994. The street window sells pizza fritta stuffed with ricotta and cicoli for around €4, and a sit-down Margherita inside runs about €4.50.
The oldest street market in Naples, trading since the 1500s between Piazza Carità and Montesanto and open until roughly 20:00. Mozzarella counters, fruit stalls and friggitorie selling paper cuoppo cones of fried seafood or vegetables.
The square sits over the 4th-century BC Greek walls of Neapolis, exposed in a sunken pit at its centre. Bars such as Intra Moenia pour spritz for €3–5, and students drink on the steps with €2 bottles bought from the alimentari.
Ride the Funicolare Centrale from Via Toledo (€1.30) up to Vomero, then walk to the star-shaped 1538 fortress. €5 buys the Piazza d'Armi rampart and a full 360° sweep over the gulf, Vesuvius and the Campi Flegrei craters.
The free public park just below Castel Sant'Elmo, open sunrise to sunset. Gravel paths through holm oak and camellia drop to a belvedere terrace over Mergellina, Capri and the bay — locals bring picnics here instead of paying for lunch.
Bus C31 or 140 (€1.30, valid 90 minutes) climbs the Posillipo ridge to a terraced hilltop park with free entry until sunset. The lower terraces look straight down on the volcanic islet of Nisida, with Ischia and Capri on the horizon.
The art stations turn a €1.30 ANM ticket into a museum. Toledo's crater escalator, sheathed in Bisazza mosaic by Oscar Tusquets Blanca, descends through a shaft of blue light; Università and Materdei sit on the same Line 1.