Naples underground tours compared: Napoli Sotterranea, LAES, the Galleria Borbonica and San Lorenzo

💡 The Short Version: Naples has four undergrounds to visit. Napoli Sotterranea (Piazza San Gaetano 68) is €18, has no booking and a queue of 10 to 90 minutes, with a skip-the-line ticket online. The LAES tour of the tunnels and cisterns under the Spanish Quarters meets at Vico Sant’Anna di Palazzo 52; each association calls its tour the official one. The Galleria Borbonica is €15, needs a booking and runs only Friday to Sunday and holidays. San Lorenzo Maggiore is €9 and open daily with no tunnels. Or book: the Napoli Sotterranea ticketad is €18 on GetYourGuide, the same as the adult price, and the LAES tourad is €18 with free cancellation.

The four undergrounds, compared

Prices are the operators’ own where they print one. Each site sells through its own channel, and searches for the underground return sites with “Naples underground” in their web addresses that are not these operators.

• Napoli Sotterranea goes down 136 steps to about 40 metres. Its entrance is marked by white and blue flags. Photographs are allowed, strollers and food are not, and the route is not accessible to wheelchairs. The Roman theatre stop is a house in Via Anticaglia, entered through a ground-floor room.
• The LAES tour has an alternative route that avoids the narrowest tunnels, and dogs may come.
• The Galleria Borbonica is wheelchair accessible for 60 per cent of the route through the Via Morelli entrance. A private tour carries a €40 supplement. The standard tour is 20 per cent cheaper with a San Lorenzo Maggiore ticket or a Campania Artecard, and 25 per cent cheaper with a MANN day ticket.
• San Lorenzo Maggiore’s €9 ticket covers the cloister, the chapter hall, the museum and the excavations, and the basilica is free. A guided visit adds €2. English visits run at 11:00, 13:15, 15:15 and 17:00. Everything but the excavations is accessible to wheelchairs.

A rock-cut cistern in the Galleria Borbonica. Photo: Associazione Culturale Borbonica Sotterranea, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Which to pick

• One hour, the classic cisterns: Napoli Sotterranea or the LAES, at €18 each. Napoli Sotterranea adds the Roman theatre stop.
• To avoid the queue: buy the Napoli Sotterranea skip-the-line ticket, or arrive at 10:00 or 18:00. The operator gives the queue as 10 to 90 minutes in busy periods.
• A Friday, Saturday or Sunday: the Galleria Borbonica, booked ahead. It is the only one that runs on those days alone.
• Claustrophobia or limited time: San Lorenzo Maggiore, at €9, with no tunnel.

A cistern cut in the tuff under Naples, with a railing for visitors. Photo: Dominik Matus, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Tours worth paying for

Prices are GetYourGuide’s lowest “from” prices, per person. Three of the four sell the operator’s own ticket at the operator’s price.

Napoli Sotterranea entry ticket and guided tour

From €18 · 1.5 to 2 hours · 4.4 stars from 26,206 reviews

Naples: Naples Underground Entry Ticket and Guided Tourad is sold by Naples Underground SRL and meets next to the Basilica of San Paolo Maggiore, the Napoli Sotterranea entrance. The listing offers fast-track entry and cannot be refunded.

Spanish Quarters underground tour

From €18 · 1 hour · 4.8 stars from 5,989 reviews

Naples: Spanish Quarters Underground Guided Tourad is the LAES tour, with a skip-the-line ticket and free cancellation.

Bourbon Tunnel guided tour

From €15 · 1 hour · 4.6 stars from 3,732 reviews

Naples: The Bourbon Tunnel Guided Tour with Entrance Ticketad is sold by the Galleria Borbonica itself at its own €15 price. Its calendar shows Friday to Sunday dates only.

San Lorenzo Maggiore and Neapolis ticket

From €9 · 4.1 stars from 1,272 reviews

Naples: San Lorenzo Maggiore & Underground Neapolis Ticketad is sold by the complex itself at the operator’s €9.

For a guided route above ground that ends below it, the Street art tour of the Spanish Quarter and the undergroundad is from €21 for 2 to 3 hours, and the Old Town and underground Roman ruins tourad is from €28 for 3 to 5 hours.

Old cars along a tunnel in the Galleria Borbonica. Photo: Associazione Culturale Borbonica Sotterranea, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Practical information

• Getting there: Napoli Sotterranea and San Lorenzo Maggiore are both in Piazza San Gaetano, off Via dei Tribunali. The LAES meeting point and the Galleria Borbonica’s Vico del Grottone entrance are near Piazza del Plebiscito and Via Toledo.
• What to wear: the LAES recommends comfortable shoes and, in hot weather, a jacket.
• Closed or short days: the Galleria Borbonica is shut Monday to Thursday. The other three print no closed day.
• The one thing that ruins a visit: arriving at Napoli Sotterranea at midday on a weekend without a skip-the-line ticket, when the queue can run to 90 minutes.

The undergrounds sit between the Cappella Sansevero and the Duomo on the Spaccanapoli walk, where San Lorenzo Maggiore and Napoli Sotterranea are the last two stops. The other burial and cistern sites are the Catacombs of Naples and the Fontanelle cemetery. What to book before you go to Naples has the closed days, Campania Artecard: is it worth it? says which of these the passes cover, and 3 days in Naples fits one underground into each day. Where to stay in Naples compares the areas.