Start under the volcano. End on a boat off Capri.
Whether Pompeii is worth doing with an archaeologist. Which Capri boats actually slip into the Blue Grotto. Where the pizza class ends with you eating the result. Reviews of the tours you can book around the Bay of Naples.
Five days out of Naples, cheapest price first
Pompeii, the Amalfi road, the tunnels under Naples, a pizza you made.
Four bookings most first trips to Naples are built around, with what each costs and what the people who took them say.
01The first morningPompeii: Entry Ticket and Guided Tour with an ArchaeologistThe ruins and the entry ticket in one booking, with an archaeologist doing the explaining. The early slot beats both the heat and the coach groups.
02The coast daySorrento, Positano and Amalfi Full-Day TourSorrento, Positano and Amalfi in one loop from Naples, with the hairpins left to a driver who knows them.
03The cool afternoonNaples Underground Entry Ticket and Guided TourForty metres under the old centre: Greek quarries, Roman cisterns and the wartime shelters dug into them.
04The eveningPizza-Making Workshop with Drink and AppetizerStretch, top and fire your own Neapolitan pizza, then eat it with a drink and a plate of starters.
Pompeii, Herculaneum, or the crater that buried them both.
The eruption of 79 AD left two Roman towns under ash and the mountain still standing over them. Three ways to spend the day, and what it costs to get in with someone who can explain it.
Naples: underground by day, at the pizza oven by night.
Everything in Naples →Spaccanapoli still follows the street plan the Greeks laid out, there are tunnels under almost all of it, and the Veiled Christ waits in a side chapel two streets away. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
Tunnels, cisterns and catacombs
Greek quarries turned Roman cisterns turned air-raid shelters, plus the catacombs of San Gennaro up in the Sanità. Bring a layer: it stays cool down there in August.
Spaccanapoli and the Veiled Christ
The marble veil in the Sansevero Chapel is the most famous sculpture in the south, and its timed tickets go quickly. A guided walk pairs it with Santa Chiara and the nativity workshops of San Gregorio Armeno.
Pizza, from dough to wood oven
A Neapolitan pizza is soft in the middle and blistered at the edge, and the dough is the whole secret. Classes put you at the counter; tours walk you between the old pizzerias instead.
Positano, Amalfi and Capri: the half of the trip spent looking at the sea.
The coast road clings to the cliff from Positano to Ravello, and Capri is under an hour out by hydrofoil. Most people give each a day. These are the three most booked across the coast and the islands.
2
3The days out everybody on the Bay of Naples wants.
Every tour around Naples →The tours more travellers book than anything else between the city and the coast, and what earns each one its place.
1
Naples Underground Entry Ticket and Guided Tour
Follow an English- or Italian-speaking guide beneath Naples to see the Greek-Roman aqueduct, Roman Theater remains, and Summa Cavea. An optional narrow passage adds a close-up look at the tunnels, and you can choose a pizza meal afterward. Allow 1.5 to 2 hours, and bring comfortable shoes.
From · $21
Read our review →
2
Pompeii: Entry Ticket and Guided Tour with an Archaeologist
from $35
3
Pompeii: Entry Ticket with Optional Audio Guide
from $26
4
Pompeii: Small Group Tour with an Archaeologist
from $40
5
Pompeii Ruins & Mount Vesuvius Day Tour
from $120
6
Sorrento, Positano and Amalfi Full-Day Tour
from $107
7
Sorrento, Positano & Amalfi Coast – Small Group Tour
from $76
8
Catacombs of San Gennaro Entry Ticket & Guided Tour
from $15
Naples invented the pizza and still argues about it.
A margherita at a marble counter, fried pizza from a street window, sfogliatella with the morning coffee, wine off the slopes of Vesuvius after lunch. Learn to make it, or just walk and eat.
Every food tour in Naples →
Four Naples bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of Naples can be decided over a coffee the same morning. These four run on named tickets, timed entries and sea conditions that take no interest in when your train gets in.
- 01Pompeii: Entry Ticket and Guided Tour with an ArchaeologistPompeii tickets now carry your name and the site caps how many people get in each day. In spring and summer the morning slots go first.
- 02Capri: Island Boat Tour with Blue Grotto StopBoats only go in when the swell and the tide allow, and on a rough day the grotto simply shuts. Book it early in the trip so a lost day can move.
- 03Mount Vesuvius: Skip-the-Line Ticket and Smart Digital GuideEntry to the crater path is sold in timed slots, and summer afternoons fill up days in advance.
- 04Downtown Tour with Veiled Christ & St Clare TicketsThe Sansevero Chapel lets a few visitors in at a time, so its timed tickets sell out days ahead in high season.
Three things you only find around the Bay of Naples.
Roman ruins turn up all over Italy. A cave that glows blue, a second city under the first and a palace built to beat Versailles do not.
The Blue Grotto
The cave mouth is barely a metre high, so you lie flat in a rowing boat while the boatman hauls you through on a chain. Inside, daylight coming up through the water turns everything a luminous blue. Late morning gives the strongest colour, and a rough sea closes it without warning.
- 1Capri: Island Boat Tour with Blue Grotto Stop★★★★★★★★★★ 4.1 · 2,071 reviews
- 2Day Trip to Capri and Blue Grotto From Naples & Sorrento★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,023 reviews
- 3Capri and Blue Grotto Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 966 reviews
Underground Naples
The Greeks quarried soft tufa out of the hill to build the city above it, the Romans turned the holes into cisterns, and during the war Neapolitans sheltered down there from the bombing. Some passages are narrow enough that you walk them sideways by candlelight.
- 1Naples Underground Entry Ticket and Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 21,781 reviews
- 2Catacombs of San Gennaro Entry Ticket & Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 7,941 reviews
- 3Spanish Quarters Underground Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 5,064 reviews
The Royal Palace of Caserta
The Bourbon kings wanted their own Versailles and built something bigger: twelve hundred rooms and a park that climbs three kilometres to a waterfall. It is about forty minutes from Naples by train, and most visitors to the bay never make it.
- 1Caserta Royal Palace & Gardens Small Group Tour with Shuttle★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 632 reviews
- 2Caserta: Royal Palace of Caserta Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 400 reviews
- 3Caserta Palace Ticket and Train with Audioguide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 348 reviews
When Pompeii hits 35 degrees, go forty metres under Naples.
Pompeii has almost no shade, and by early afternoon in July the paving throws the heat straight back at you. Do the ruins at opening time, spend the afternoon underground, in a museum or at a cooking class, and save the coast for the evening breeze.
What a day around Naples actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A good share of the best of Naples comes in under the cost of dinner.
Entry tickets, the underground, street-food walks and Pompeii on your own ticket.
Pompeii with a guide, the Amalfi Coast loop, Capri boat days and the cooking classes.
Private drivers along the coast, Capri by private boat, and the long Pompeii-and-coast days.
Naples, Pompeii, Vesuvius, Sorrento, Capri, Amalfi: the classic first week.
Naples
Sorrento
CapriBy place: the city, the ruins, the coast
By kind of day: below ground, at the oven, on the water
Newly reviewed around Naples and the bay.
Keep reading the new Naples reviews →
Private Natural Wine Vs Byodinamic and Organic Wine Tour
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Tiramisù Making Class With Limoncello or Meloncello Tasting
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Tour in the Charterhouse of St. Martin and Pedamentina with an art expert
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Private Amalfi Coast Secret Tour with Carmine from Rome or Naples
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Capri Voucher from Naples: Hydrofoil and Boat Tour Included
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