Galleria Borbonica: four different routes, only one ticket online

The Galleria Borbonica is run by the Associazione Culturale Borbonica Sotterranea, VAT number 06336291213, which publishes fares, times, durations and restrictions on its own site, route by route. It is the highest level of transparency among the Naples undergrounds, and it makes this page a guide to choosing rather than a judgement.

What kind of organisation it is

A private cultural association that runs the tunnel commissioned by Ferdinand II and designed by Errico Alvino, plus the tufa quarries and the Renaissance stretches of the Bolla aqueduct that the excavation cut into. It is not a state museum: the guides belong to the association, and a good part of the chambers was cleared of rubble by volunteers, as the site says of the newly rediscovered spaces.

Inside the tunnel are the three bridges the Bourbons built to cross the cisterns without losing their function, the spaces adapted as wartime shelters, fragments of statues and the vintage cars and motorbikes found buried there: the Galleria served as the City of Naples impound from the post-war years to the Seventies.

The four routes, in the open

Open to the public Friday, Saturday, Sunday and public holidays, with booking compulsory on every route. Reductions on the Standard and the Via delle Memorie: €10 for ages 6 to 18, over-70s and police and armed forces, €7 for visitors with a disability, free up to 5. The Avventura and the Speleo have a single fare. Outside opening days you can ask for a private tour, with a guide to yourselves, from 9am to 6pm on any day, quoted on request. There is also a virtual tour over Zoom at €5 plus €1 booking fee, at 11am and 6pm, with a minimum of eight participants.

Which to choose, without beating about the bush

Standard if it is your first time or you are with children and people who dread enclosed spaces: the site says so explicitly, “children yes, claustrophobia yes, disabled visitors yes, photographs yes”. It is also the only route with stated accessibility: 60% can be done in a wheelchair entering from via Morelli 61.

Via delle Memorie if you want the context above the tunnel: it starts from the octagonal courtyard and grand staircase of Palazzo Serra di Cassano, passes through the former joinery where a small war museum holds the finds of three years of digging, drops to the tufa quarries the palace was cut from and to the cistern still full of water, and emerges in the Parcheggio Morelli. It is not accessible: there are stairs.

Avventura if you want the physical part: orange helmet and torch, a narrow tunnel towards a late-fifteenth-century cistern with crosses carved into the hydraulic mortar by the pozzari, the well men, twenty metres of the Pizzofalcone tunnel, the descent to the floor of the second cistern where the water table surfaces and the stretch on a raft in the pilot tunnel. Minimum age ten, ID or tax code required between 10 and 15, not advised with claustrophobia or mobility problems, photographs only partly allowed.

Speleo Light if the idea of coming out filthy appeals: an hour and a half in the tunnels of the Bolla aqueduct with a caving helmet and headlamp, among the religious carvings of the pozzari and chambers the guides add as they are cleared. Adults only, ruled out with claustrophobia, with even slight mobility problems and above 100 kg.

Getting there

Three entrances, three areas. Vico del Grottone 4: from piazza del Plebiscito you walk up via Gennaro Serra, second on the left, and the alley is a dead end some thirty metres long. Via Domenico Morelli 61: the piazza Vittoria area, with the access inside the Parcheggio Morelli, and this is the only one easy to reach by car. Via Monte di Dio 14: Palazzo Serra di Cassano, interno A14, again walking up via Gennaro Serra from the Plebiscito. From Stazione Centrale you get to piazza Municipio or piazza Vittoria on ANM transport; from the airport, the Alibus takes about twenty minutes to piazza Municipio or Molo Beverello. The lines, fares and integrated tickets are on the page about getting around Naples.

When the partner ticket is the better buy

On the partner platforms there is only the Percorso Standard, and it is at the same price as the official channel. Prices checked regularly.

Fifteen euro against fifteen: the difference is free cancellation and the fact that you do not have to telephone to book, with the exact meeting point on the voucher. If you want the Avventura, the Speleo, the Via delle Memorie or the private tour, the partner channel does not carry them: you have to go through the association, by phone or email.

GetYourGuide 1 h

Naples: The Bourbon Tunnel Guided Tour with Entrance Ticket

★ 4.7 (3,627 reviews) ✓ Cancellation free

Tiqets 01:00

Galleria Borbonica: Guided Tour

★ 4.6 (456 reviews)

What the official site does not say

There is no published refund policy for telephone bookings, and no cancellation deadline. The maximum number of participants per departure is not given, nor the temperature inside. And the fares page does not mention the Campania Artecard: the pass, for its part, grants only the reduction at the Borbonica, not free entry, so in the arithmetic of tickets and passes count it as a full-price expense.

How to check before you pay

• Check the right entrance for the route you have booked: there are three and they are a good way apart.
• If you need accessibility, book the Standard from via Morelli 61 and say so on the phone.
• For the Avventura bring ID if the group includes anyone aged 10 to 15.
• For the Speleo Light wear shoes you can ruin and take the stated limits seriously.
• For telephone bookings, ask whether and how you can cancel: it is not written on the site.

The verdict

It is the best-documented underground in Naples and the only one that gives a serious answer to anyone with mobility problems or a fear of enclosed spaces. The price is fair and the special routes — the Avventura’s raft, the Speleo’s tunnels — have no equivalent in the city. Its one real limit is weekend-only opening: if you are in Naples midweek and do not want to pay for a private tour, what is left is Napoli Sotterranea on piazza San Gaetano, open every day. To compare the city’s four undergrounds there is the page about Naples underground: which route to visit; for the rest of the area, castles and palaces on the seafront.