Pompeii before the heat. The coast road after lunch.
Which Amalfi day trip actually stops in Positano. What the crater path up Vesuvius costs once the shuttle is added. Whether Herculaneum beats Pompeii when you only have a morning. Reviews of every tour you can book out of Naples.
Pompeii, the coast road, the island, and a dough you queue for.
The four bookings a first trip to Naples is built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The long dayPompeii Ruins & Mount Vesuvius Day TourThe excavations in the morning, the crater path after lunch. One coach, both sites, and no working out the Circumvesuviana timetable.
02The coast roadSorrento, Positano and Amalfi Full-Day TourSorrento, Positano and Amalfi in a single run of hairpins. Take a window seat on the right on the way out.
03Out into the bayGulf of Naples & Capri Sightseeing Boat TourNaples from the water, then the limestone of Capri close enough to see the caves. The view that explains the whole city.
04The doughPizza-Making Workshop with Drink and AppetizerTwo hours in a working pizzeria before service starts, and you eat what you made standing at the counter.
Amalfi by road, Capri by ferry, or Sorrento as a base.
One coastline, three completely different days. What it costs to board each one, and which one fits the time you actually have.
Six places you can reach from Naples before lunch.
A buried city under the ash, a mountain you can walk into, a corniche road on the far side of the peninsula, an island of limestone cliffs, and a second Naples hollowed out under the pavement. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
Pompeii, Herculaneum and the mountain that buried them.
Two Roman towns stopped in AD 79, and the volcano still standing over both. Pompeii is vast and mostly roofless. Herculaneum is small, deep and far better preserved. The crater path above them takes about half a day.
Naples rewards walking, and a good deal of it is downstairs.
Everything in the city →
Spaccanapoli cuts the old town in a straight line, and under it runs a second city of Greek cisterns, wartime shelters and a Bourbon escape tunnel. These three carry more travellers than anything else inside the walls.
Napoli Sotterranea, or the Bourbon Tunnel
Two different holes in the same hill. The Greek cisterns under Piazza San Gaetano are narrow and lit by hand; the Bourbon Tunnel is wide, floored with wartime rubble and impounded cars. Neither suits bad knees.
The Veiled Christ, and the chapel around it
Sanmartino carved the body and the shroud over it from a single block in 1753. The chapel it lies in is stranger still, and the room holds a few dozen people at a time, so slots go days ahead in summer.
Pizza a portafoglio, then everything fried
Folded pizza eaten on the walk, a cuoppo of anchovies and courgette flowers, a sfogliatella still too hot to hold. Most of it is eaten standing in the street, which is the point.
The days out of Naples that most travellers book.
Every tour we have reviewed →The tours more people take than anything else on this stretch of coast, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Pompeii Ruins & Mount Vesuvius Day Tour
Tour Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius from Naples with a guide, pizza lunch, crater walk, Bay of Naples views, and hotel or port transfers.
From · $120
Read our review →
2
Sorrento, Positano and Amalfi Full-Day Tour
from $107
3
Sorrento, Positano & Amalfi Coast – Small Group Tour
from $76
4
Catacombs of San Gennaro Entry Ticket & Guided Tour
from $15
5
Downtown Tour with Veiled Christ & St Clare Tickets
from $57
6
Pizza-Making Workshop with Drink and Appetizer
from $39
7
Hop-on Hop-off Bus Tour 24-Hour Ticket
from $30
8
Spanish Quarters Underground Guided Tour
from $17
What a day out of Naples actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. A good number of the best days here come in under the fare from Capodichino.
Site entries, the underground tours, street-food walks and the pizza classes.
The full-day standards: Pompeii with Vesuvius, the coast road, the boat to Capri.
Private guides, chartered boats and the once-a-trip days that earn it.
Three things that only happen in Naples.
Roman ruins and a good coastline exist all over Italy. A second city hollowed out under the pavement, a marble shroud carved from the block beneath it, and a dough with a legal specification do not.
The city under the city
The Greeks quarried tuff out from under the old town, the Romans ran an aqueduct through the voids, and the whole system was pressed into service as an air-raid shelter in 1943. Some galleries are wide enough for a hospital bed; others narrow to a passage you turn sideways for. Different operators go in through different holes, so the tour you book decides which underground you see.
- 1Catacombs of San Gennaro Entry Ticket & Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 7,941 reviews
- 2Spanish Quarters Underground Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 5,064 reviews
- 3The Bourbon Tunnel Guided Tour with Entrance Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,711 reviews
The Veiled Christ
Giuseppe Sanmartino carved the body and the veil lying over it from a single piece of stone in 1753, and for two centuries people insisted the shroud had to be some chemical trick. It is not. The chapel around it was built by a prince who filled it with allegories nobody has fully explained, and it admits about forty people at a time.
- 1Downtown Tour with Veiled Christ & St Clare Tickets★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 6,462 reviews
- 2Sansevero Chapel Ticket and Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 2,331 reviews
- 3Veiled Christ Entrance Ticket and Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 956 reviews
Pizza napoletana
The dough has a legal specification: soft wheat, natural yeast, a rest measured in hours, then sixty to ninety seconds in a wood oven at 485 degrees. Classes run in the rooms the pizzerias actually use, almost always in the late morning before service, and you eat what you made standing at the counter.
- 1Pizza-Making Workshop with Drink and Appetizer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 5,411 reviews
- 2Authentic Pizza Making Class in Naples with Appetizers and Drink★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,178 reviews
- 3Neapolitan Pizza and Tiramisù Making Class★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 839 reviews
Fried on the street, folded in the hand, or taught in a back kitchen.
Half of Naples is eaten standing up. Book the street-food walk for the first evening, the pizza class before service starts, and the limoncello for whatever is left of the afternoon.
Four Naples bookings that will not wait.
Most of this city can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on timed entry slots, ferry timetables and a mountain that closes when the weather turns.
- 01Pompeii Ruins & Mount Vesuvius Day TourThe crater path runs on timed entry and shuts outright in high wind or storm. There is no waiting around for a later slot.
- 02Gulf of Naples & Capri Sightseeing Boat TourSummer hydrofoils out of Molo Beverello go by mid-morning, and the Blue Grotto only opens when the sea is flat.
- 03Pompeii Ruins & Mount Vesuvius Day TourEntry is timed and capped. The early slots are also the only ones with any shade left in the streets.
- 04Sansevero Chapel Ticket and Guided TourThe chapel takes a few dozen people at a time, so entry is sold in short slots and summer weekends go days ahead.
Wind stops the ferries, and the excavations have no shade at all.
Two things break a Naples itinerary. A summer afternoon on an unshaded excavation is genuinely hard going by noon, and a stiff wind stops the hydrofoils to Capri and Ischia at short notice. Both have the same answer: go early, then go indoors or underground.
By place — the bay, the excavations and the coast
By kind of day — ruin, boat, kitchen or road
Naples, Pompeii, Vesuvius, Capri, the coast road: the week almost everybody does first.
The centro storicoThe newest Naples tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Full-Day Tour of the Amalfi Coast and Pompeii from Naples
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Visit 2 wine producers with tasting and transportation included
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Private Tour: Pompeii & Wine Tasting at the Slopes of Mt Vesuvius
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Private VIP tour to Pompeii Ruins with a Private Guide
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Amalfi, Positano and Sorrento Full Day Excursion from Naples
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