13 Things to Do in Naples I’d Actually Recommend (After 4 Days There)
Naples looks manageable on a map.
It is not.
I arrived with a tidy list of things to do in Naples, worked out over weeks, and it barely survived the first day.
Here’s what nobody tells you before you go.
The centre is dense in a way that eats hours you didn’t budget for.
You’ll plan three things in an afternoon, get sidetracked by a street you weren’t expecting, and do one of them.
I had four days here and I didn’t get through everything I wanted to.
I’d rather tell you that than pretend I’ve seen the whole city!
So if you’re coming for a long weekend and you want to spend it well, here’s everything I actually did, plus the two things I missed that I’d still go back for.
1. Napoli Sotterranea (Underground Naples)
Genuinely one of the most interesting things I did in Naples.
You go down about 40 metres, into Greek-era quarries, a Roman aqueduct, and narrow tunnels you have to walk through sideways.
What makes it worth doing isn’t any one of those things. It’s that they’re all the same space.
The Greeks started digging here around 2,400 years ago, cutting out blocks of soft yellow tufa to build the city standing above you. The holes they left behind became the problem the Romans solved, by turning those voids into an aqueduct network that watered Naples for centuries.
For most of that time the only way in or out was down a well.
A specialised trade grew up around that, men called pozzari, who moved through the passages beneath people’s houses maintaining the cisterns and clearing the channels.
The whole system was shut down after the cholera epidemic of 1884 and mostly sat empty.
Then in 1942 the bombs started falling, and the city cut staircases down into the old aqueduct so people could shelter in it.
That’s the part that stays with you. The graffiti is still on the walls, along with things people left behind during nights spent underground while the city was hit above them.
A Greek quarry became a Roman water supply became a bomb shelter, and none of it was planned. Each generation just used the hole the last one left.
⏱️ How long you need: About an hour for the tour itself, plus time to get there and queue if you haven’t booked online.
I’ve written up the full experience, including the price and my honest warning about the crowds, in my review of the underground tour.
Check current prices and availability here →
2. The Royal Palace of Naples
The Royal Palace (Palazzo Reale) sits along the whole eastern edge of Piazza del Plebiscito, and it was built in 1600 for a king who never turned up.
That’s not a joke. The Spanish viceroy commissioned it specifically to host Philip III of Spain on a state visit, and hired Domenico Fontana, at the time about the most in-demand architect in Europe, to make sure it was grand enough for him.
Philip III cancelled. He died in 1621 without ever seeing it.
The palace stayed anyway, and became the seat of power in Naples for the next 250 years, first for the Spanish viceroys, then the Bourbons, then the kings of a united Italy.
Our food tour guide told us the staircase inside inspired the one in Cinderella, and after hearing that I went straight there when the tour finished.
The staircase is worth the trip regardless of whether that story is true.
It was built in the 1650s by Francesco Antonio Picchiatti, then refaced in pink and white marble in the rebuild that followed a fire in 1837.
💰 What I paid: €15 entry, and I’d say it’s worth every cent if you have any interest in interior design or architecture.
There weren’t many other visitors when I went, which surprised me for somewhere this impressive.
3. The Duomo di Napoli (Naples Cathedral)
I stumbled across the Duomo di Santa Maria Assunta while wandering with no real plan, turned a corner, and was stopped in my tracks by how huge it is.
Entry to the cathedral itself is free.
Walk through the door on the left side and you’ll find a small courtyard, then keep going and you’ll hit a second, more stunning courtyard with yellow buildings.
When I visited this section it was completely empty.
Worth knowing what this building means to the city before you wander in.
The Duomo holds two sealed vials said to contain the dried blood of San Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples, who was executed in the year 305.
Three times a year, in May, September and December, the vials are brought out in front of a packed cathedral, and the blood is expected to turn liquid.
Thousands of people come to watch it happen.
If it doesn’t liquefy, Neapolitans take that as a bad omen for the city, and they mean it.
It reportedly failed in 1980, the year of the earthquake that killed thousands in the region.
So this isn’t a cathedral people file through politely.
It’s a working piece of the city’s identity, and if you happen to be in Naples in mid-September you’ll see a side of the place most visitors never do.
4. Wander the Spanish Quarter (Quartieri Spagnoli)
The Spanish Quarter was laid out as a strict grid in the 16th century to house Spanish soldiers, and it’s carried a reputation for being one of the rougher parts of the city ever since.
That reputation is why a lot of people skip it, and it’s the same nervousness I get asked about constantly, which I’ve answered properly in my guide to how safe Naples actually is.
Locals have spent recent years reclaiming it, opening family-run restaurants where the grandmothers are doing the cooking, and it felt safe and full of life when I walked through.
The one thing I didn’t get to, and I’m annoyed about it, is Largo Maradona on Via Emanuele de Deo.
There’s a three-storey mural of Diego Maradona on the wall there, painted in 1990 by a local artist called Mario Filardi to mark Napoli winning their second league title.
That needs context to land.
Maradona arrived in 1984, when Napoli were a mid-table southern club that wealthier northern teams openly looked down on.
Three years later he’d won them the first major trophy in their history, and then a second.
For a city used to being talked down to by the rest of Italy, an Argentinian turning up and beating the north on its own terms meant considerably more than football.
Since he died in 2020 the corner has become a proper shrine.
Scarves, candles, photographs, handwritten notes left by people who’ve come from all over the world.
It’s free and it’s open all hours.
5. Walk Spaccanapoli
Spaccanapoli is the long, dead-straight street that splits Naples’ old centre in two, and it’s a completely different experience to the Spanish Quarter, even though people sometimes lump the two together.
It’s a nickname, meaning roughly “Naples splitter”, and the route is actually several streets laid end to end.
Via Benedetto Croce becomes Via San Biagio dei Librai becomes Via Vicaria Vecchia.
So if you’re following a map and the name keeps changing, you haven’t gone wrong.
That’s just the street.
The reason it runs so unnaturally straight is that it’s Greek.
When Neapolis was founded around the 5th century BC, the Greeks laid it out on a grid of three long parallel roads running east to west.
This is the southernmost of the three, and the other two are still there as well, one street and two streets north of you.
The Romans took over the grid and renamed the roads, the city was rebuilt on top of itself over and over for the next 2,500 years, and the layout never moved.
You’re walking a street that has been in continuous use since before the Roman Empire existed.
It’s full of street vendors, quick coffee stops and souvenir stalls, and it’s a great place to just wander without a destination in mind.
One tip if you want to actually see the split: go up to Castel Sant’Elmo on the hill and look down.
From up there the whole thing reads as one dead-straight line cut through the middle of the old city, which is where the name comes from and which you can’t see at all from street level.
6. The Galleria Umberto I was built between 1887 and 1890 to clean up an area that used to be dangerous, and it’s now full of cafés, apartments and beautiful marble architecture.
It’s worth knowing exactly what “dangerous” meant here, because it’s the same story as the tunnels.
In 1884 a cholera epidemic tore through Naples and killed thousands of people. The dense, overcrowded streets around this spot were blamed for it, and the response was to demolish them entirely.
What went up instead was this: a vast glass-domed arcade named after the king, deliberately light and airy and open, designed as somewhere people could walk without fear.
The whole city-wide programme was called the risanamento, which translates as “making healthy again”. This building was its centrepiece, and it went up in three years.
Look down at the mosaic in the centre and you’ll spot a zodiac design, laid in the 1950s after the original was destroyed by bombing in the Second World War.
💡 Top tip: Local legend says if you stand on your zodiac sign in the mosaic and spin around three times, you’ll have good luck and come back to Naples one day.
7. Rub the nose of the Busto di Pulcinella
Naples has a reputation for being a superstitious city, and this bust is a good example why.
You’re supposed to rub its nose for good luck, it takes about a minute, and it’s a fun quick stop if you’re already walking through the area.
You’ll find it at the top of Vico del Fico al Purgatorio, just off Via dei Tribunali.
Worth knowing who you’re rubbing, though.
Pulcinella is the mask of Naples: white smock, black mask, hooked nose, permanently broke and permanently getting one over on whoever’s in charge. He came out of the city’s street theatre in the 1600s and he’s meant to be the voice of the ordinary Neapolitan, the one who has nothing and survives on wit.
Here’s the part that surprises most English speakers.
Pulcinella is where Punch comes from. Punch and Judy, the seaside puppet show.
He travelled from Naples to France as Polichinelle, then to England, where the name got shortened to Punch.
That nose you’re rubbing is the same nose.
One thing worth adjusting your expectations for: the bust itself is recent. It was made in 2012 by the Neapolitan sculptor Lello Esposito, who gave it to the city.
So this isn’t a centuries-old ritual. It’s a brand new one, invented in the last decade or so, on a figure the city has had for 400 years.
Which is quite Neapolitan in itself.
8. Eat pizza margherita the proper Napoli way
This isn’t a place, it’s a technique, and it matters enough that I’m putting it on this list.
Cut a slice with a knife and fork, fold it slightly, then eat it.
The crust here is soft and delicate rather than crispy, and you’ll lose your toppings if you pick it up like a regular slice.
There’s a reason for that, and it’s the thing most visitors get wrong.
A true Neapolitan pizza goes into a wood oven at around 450°C and comes out in about 60 to 90 seconds. That’s the rule, and it’s enforced by an actual governing body that certifies pizzerias.
At that speed the rim puffs and chars while the centre stays soft and slightly wet.
So when you cut in and the middle looks almost soupy, that’s not undercooked. That’s what you ordered. People send it back thinking something’s gone wrong.
If you’re eating it standing up on the street rather than at a table, there’s a second technique. Fold the whole thing in half, then in half again, so it forms a rough wallet shape you can hold in one hand.
It’s called pizza a portafoglio, the wallet pizza, and the entire pizza is designed around being carried and eaten while walking.
For where to actually get it, my guide to the best pizza in Naples has everywhere I tried.
9. Grab an Aperol Spritz to go
I got mine for €1.50 on the walk home to where I was staying, and it’s one of the easiest, cheapest ways to feel like you’re doing Naples properly.
There’s a rhythm to when this happens, and it’s worth matching it.
Aperitivo here runs roughly from 6pm until dinner, and dinner is late.
That gap is when the streets fill up: people finish work, come out, walk, stand around with a drink and talk.
It’s not really about the alcohol. It’s the bit of the evening where the whole city is outside at once, and having a drink in your hand is your ticket to standing in the middle of it.
So don’t rush it and don’t sit down somewhere quiet. Get one to go, walk, and see where you end up.
Cammarota Spritz is the name everyone will point you towards, tucked in the Quartieri Spagnoli, known for its pink spritz and its limoncello spritz.
If you’re staying near the centre you’ll walk past a dozen places doing the same thing for a euro or two. That’s rather the point.
10. Day trip to Pompeii, the Amalfi Coast and Sorrento
This deserves a full day on its own, and I did exactly that with a guided tour covering all three.
A word on Pompeii before you go, because knowing what it actually is changes how you walk around it.
It isn’t a ruin in the usual sense.
When Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD it buried the town in ash so fast and so deep that it sealed everything underneath: the roads, the shops, the paintings on the walls, the graffiti people had scratched outside their houses.
So you’re not looking at fragments of a Roman town.
You’re walking through a whole one, laid out as it was on an ordinary day, with the bakery and the bar and the front doors still where they were.
It’s also much bigger than people expect. Roughly a third of the site still hasn’t been excavated, and there’s more of it underground right now than most visitors ever see.
Then you get back on the bus and drive down a coastline where the same volcanic soil that buried Pompeii is what makes the lemons and the tomatoes taste the way they do.
That’s the thing about this day. It’s one geological accident, seen from both ends.
I’ve written the entire day up, including the price and my honest take on rushing versus taking your time, in my full review of the day trip.
11. Coffee at Sette Caffè
This café felt like a genuine hidden gem, tucked away from the busy main streets with hardly anyone else there when I visited.
💰 What I paid: €2.80 for a double espresso and a water, with really friendly staff. This was a little expesnive for Naples but I liked the place so it was okay.
Two things about ordering coffee here that catch people out.
The water isn’t a side order or an upsell.
It arrives automatically, and you’re meant to drink it before the coffee, to clear your palate so the espresso lands properly.
Drinking it after is considered slightly odd.
And espresso in Naples often comes already sweetened, because the assumption is that you want sugar. If you don’t, say amaro when you order.
Naples also has the cheapest coffee in Italy.
A standard espresso at the counter usually runs about a euro, sometimes less.
12. Chiostro di Santa Chiara
I didn’t manage to get here myself, which genuinely bums me out.
The draw is the majolica cloister. In 1739 the architect Domenico Antonio Vaccaro was brought in to redo the nuns’ garden, and what he produced was 72 octagonal columns wrapped in hand-painted ceramic tiles, with tiled benches running between them.
The tiles were painted by two brothers, Donato and Giuseppe Massa, and the scenes on them aren’t religious at all. Boar hunts, dancing, country life, vines, flowers.
Here’s the part I find remarkable.
The Poor Clares living here were an enclosed order, so from the 1740s until 1925 nobody outside the convent saw any of it.
Nearly two hundred years of one of the most beautiful spaces in Naples, painted for an audience of nuns.
Entry is around €7, sold on the door rather than online.
13. Naples Archaeological Museum
I ran out of time for this one too, but my guide, who’s from the Naples area, told me it was his favourite thing to do in the city.
That makes sense once you know what’s in it.
Almost everything portable that came out of Pompeii and Herculaneum ended up here rather than staying on site.
The mosaics, the frescoes, the bronzes, the everyday household objects.
So the ruins give you the town and this gives you its contents, which is why doing one without the other leaves you with half the story.
If you’re doing the Pompeii day trip as well, that’s the argument for fitting both in.
So, is four days enough to spend in Naples?
No. That’s the honest answer.
I planned this trip properly, I walked a lot, and I still finished it with a list of things I hadn’t got to.
But I’ve come to think that’s the wrong way to measure Naples.
The best bits of this trip weren’t on my list at all. I found the Duomo by turning a corner.
The pizza I’ll remember longest turned up after my first order never arrived and I’d nearly given up on eating. The best €1.50 I spent was a spritz on the walk home.
None of that was planned, and none of it would have happened if I’d stuck rigidly to a schedule.
So use this list as a starting point rather than a checklist. Pick three or four things a day, leave gaps between them, and let the city fill in the rest.
You’ll miss things. Everyone does. That’s not a failure, that’s just how much is here.
I came into this trip with a lot of warnings ringing in my ears and left completely won over, which I’ve written about properly in my honest verdict on Naples.
