Naples has been continuously inhabited for 2,700 years, and every layer is still visible: Greek walls under a monastery, a Roman market 40 metres below a basilica, Angevin towers, Bourbon throne rooms and WWII shelters carved from tufa.
Descend 40m through Greek tufa quarries cut in the 4th century BC, later Roman aqueduct cisterns, then WWII air-raid shelters still holding beds and toys. Guided tours only, hourly 10:00–18:00, entry from Piazza San Gaetano 68.
Beneath this 1270 Angevin church lies the best-preserved Greco-Roman street in the city: the macellum food market, bakery and laundry of Neapolis, paved and roofed. Boccaccio met his Fiammetta here in 1334.
The Gothic cathedral, begun 1294 by Charles I of Anjou, encloses Naples's oldest basilica (4th century) and a 5th-century baptistery with the earliest surviving Christian mosaics in the West. The San Gennaro blood relic liquefies each September.
The Norman fortress of William I (1160) became the Kingdom of Naples's supreme courthouse in 1540 and stayed one until 2007. The adjoining Porta Capuana of 1484, framed in white marble by Giuliano da Maiano, is the finest Renaissance gate south of Rome.
Begun 1600 for a Spanish viceroy, remodelled by the Bourbons and briefly home to Murat. Thirty royal apartments, the 1768 Teatrino di Corte and the eight statues of Naples's dynasties on the facade. Open 09:00–20:00, closed Wednesdays.
Built on the islet of Megaride where Greek colonists from Rhodes landed around 680 BC, later Lucullus's villa, then a Norman keep. Its name comes from Virgil's magic egg, said to be walled inside — break it and Naples falls.
Charles of Anjou's 1279 fortress, where Celestine V resigned the papacy in 1294. The white Triumphal Arch of 1470 records Alfonso of Aragon's entry into the city; the Barons' Hall witnessed the conspirators' arrest in 1487.
Ferdinand II ordered this escape tunnel under Monte Echia in 1853 after the 1848 revolts; it was never finished. Wartime Neapolitans sheltered here, leaving graffiti, and the police later dumped confiscated cars and Fascist statues inside.
A 1325 Carthusian monastery rebuilt in Baroque, holding the Cuccioniello nativity and the Tavola Strozzi, the 1472 panel showing the Aragonese fleet and the only reliable portrait of medieval Naples. Closed Wednesdays.
A six-pointed star fort of 1538 designed by Pedro Luis Escrivá, whose guns controlled the city rather than the sea. Republicans of the 1799 Parthenopean Republic were jailed here before their execution in Piazza Mercato.
A tufa ossuary holding roughly 40,000 anonymous bones stacked after the 1656 plague and 1836 cholera. Neapolitans adopted single skulls, the capuzzelle, praying for them until the Church banned the cult in 1969.
Two levels of 2nd-century burial galleries that received San Gennaro's body around 413, making this the region's main pilgrimage site. The frescoes include the earliest known image of the saint, painted in the 5th century.