Catacombs of Naples tickets: €13, a guided visit every hour, booking compulsory, closed on Wednesdays

💡 The Short Version: The Catacombs of Naples cost €13 for either the San Gennaro or the San Gaudioso catacomb, and booking is always compulsory: the visit is a guided tour that leaves every hour from 10:00. They are open daily from 10:00 to 17:00 and closed on Wednesdays. A ticket for one is valid for 12 months at the other. It is 15 to 22 °C underground, so bring a jumper. Buy from the operator, catacombedinapoli.it. Or book: the Catacombs of San Gennaro entry ticket and tourad is €13 on GetYourGuide, sold by the operator itself.

Tickets and prices

Prices are the adult rate from the operator, the Catacombe di Napoli, a cooperative working in the Rione Sanità. Searches for the catacombs return sites with “San Gennaro” in their web addresses that are not the operator, so use the address above.

• One ticket, two catacombs: a San Gennaro ticket is valid for 12 months at San Gaudioso, and a San Gaudioso ticket at San Gennaro.
• The Artecard gives a reduction only, never a free entry. FAI and Touring Club members pay €10.40.
• The Catacombs of Naples belong to the MANN’s ExtraMANN network: a MANN day ticket or an OPEN MANN card gives 25 per cent off.

Where to buy

GetYourGuide’s prices are its lowest “from” prices. The catacombs sell these products themselves, at the operator’s own price.

Tours worth paying for

The visit is always guided, so the official ticket and the GetYourGuide products below are the same tour. The reason to use GetYourGuide is free cancellation and a calendar of the hourly slots. Prices are GetYourGuide’s lowest “from” prices, per person.

Catacombs of San Gennaro

From €13 · 45 minutes · 4.6 stars from 8,888 reviews

Naples: Catacombs of San Gennaro Entry Ticket & Guided Tourad is sold by the Catacombe di Napoli. The ticket also admits you to San Gaudioso and the basilica for 12 months.

Catacombs of San Gaudioso

From €13 · 4.7 stars from 1,261 reviews

Naples: San Gaudioso Catacombs Guided Tourad is also sold by the operator, and includes free entry to San Gennaro for 12 months.

The Holy Mile

From €19 · 3 hours · 4.9 stars from 773 reviews

Naples: The Holy Mile 3-Hour Guided Tourad is the operator’s walk through the Rione Sanità on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays at 9:30, and its dates show only those days.

What to see

Naples’ catacombs are dug into soft tuff, so their galleries are far wider than the better-known catacombs of Rome. Both lie under the Rione Sanità, a district that was a burial ground from Hellenistic times.

The upper vestibule of the Catacombs of San Gennaro. Photo: Catacombe di Napoli, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

1. San Gennaro, the lower level. A grid of wide galleries round the underground basilica of Sant’Agrippino, the first patron of Naples. The vestibule has ceilings up to 6 metres high and a large baptismal font.
2. San Gennaro, the upper level. The older part, from a tomb of the 3rd century that holds some of the earliest Christian paintings in southern Italy. San Gennaro’s remains were brought here in the 5th century, and it has a bishops’ crypt and a three-aisled underground basilica.
3. San Gaudioso. Under the high altar of the Basilica of Santa Maria della Sanità, entered from Via Sanità 123. It holds frescoes and mosaics of the 5th and 6th centuries and 17th-century burials of nobles. Its Madonna della Sanità of the 5th or 6th century is, the operator says, the oldest picture of Mary in Campania.

A gallery in the Catacombs of San Gennaro, with burial shelves cut into the tuff. Photo: Dominik Matus, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Allow an hour for each catacomb. The order that works: San Gennaro in the morning, San Gaudioso after lunch, on the same day or within the year. What to skip: nothing, since the guide leads the route.

A room in the Catacombs of San Gaudioso, with niches cut into the tuff. Photo: Fabien Bièvre-Perrin, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Hours, rules and getting there

• Hours: Monday to Sunday 10:00 to 17:00, with last entry at 17:00. Closed on Wednesdays and on 25 December. The guided visit leaves every hour and takes about an hour, in Italian and English.
• San Gennaro: Via Capodimonte 13, with the entrance beside the Basilica del Buon Consiglio. There is free parking at the site. By bus from Piazza Museo, next to the Archaeological Museum, take the 650, C63, 3M, 168, 178 or 204 to the stop Basilica Incoronata - Catacombe San Gennaro, about 15 minutes. It is on the museum’s walking route between the Archaeological Museum and Capodimonte.
• San Gaudioso: Via Sanità 123, 15 minutes’ walk from the Fontanelle cemetery.
• Temperature: 15 to 22 °C all year. Wear comfortable shoes and a jumper.
• The one thing that ruins a visit: turning up without a booking. Every visit is a booked guided tour.

San Gennaro’s relics were brought to these catacombs in the 5th century; the saint’s blood and Treasury are now in the Duomo, covered in the Duomo and Treasury of San Gennaro guide. The catacombs are one of three sites in the Rione Sanità: the Fontanelle cemetery is a short walk away, and Jago’s Figlio Velato is in the basilica of San Severo, covered at the end of the Sansevero Chapel guide. The catacombs are on the way up to Capodimonte, and the underground tours compare the other burial and cistern sites. What to book before you go to Naples lists the closed day of every sight, Campania Artecard: is it worth it? says what the pass saves here, and 3 days in Naples puts the Sanità on a day when it is open. Concettina ai Tre Santi, in the same district, is in the best pizza in Naples, and where to eat in Naples lists the rest. San Gennaro’s miracle dates gives the three days the saint’s blood is shown. Where to stay in Naples compares the areas.