Naples is the capital of the Campania Region. This ancient and interesting city overlooking the sea of its gulf with the largest tourist port and attracts many tourists, not only with interests up to visiting the city itself.
Although the busy metropolis is famous in Italy for good Italian cuisine, breathtaking views, important museums, and beautiful monuments, Naples is a good port for easy day trips to some of Italy’s most famous destinations.
But wich is Naples must-see attractions and what to see in Naples in one day?
Well, we don’t want to take too much of your precious time, so let’s list which are the Naples’s 10 Top-Rated tourist attractions.
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TOP ATTRACTION #1 – The Blu Grotto
![how to visit bu grotto in capri](https://www.naplesdriverguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/blu-grotto-capri.jpg)
The Capri’s most renowned attraction was on the tourist destination for almost 200 decades.
By Anacapri the island’s eastern side falls into low cliffs and coves reached by two streets, each served with a regular bus service. The bus marked’Faro’ goes into the lighthouse in Punta Carena, the island’s wildest and least visited corner. This is a great swimming pool cove with a restaurant.
Another bus travels to a landing-stage alongside Capri’s most renowned attraction, the Grotta Azzurra or Blue Grotto (Apr-Oct 7.30 am -6 pm, Nov-Mar 8.30 am- 2 pm), which you could also hit on structured tours, typically by boat in the Marina Grande.
When a miracle of the world becomes famous as Capri’s Blue Grotto, high expectations hazard disappointment. Not so with this particular magical cavern and its own luminous electric blue and silver plantations: the Blue Grotto lives around the rhapsodies it’s moved because it was’found’ in 1827.
The entry to the Blue Grotto is an opening just wide and large enough to get a rowing vessel, with passengers having to snowball. Sunlight filtered from over this opening irradiates the water using an earthy blue that flashes and sparkles silver when a hand or oars are trailed beneath the surface. The best time for viewing is all about midday.
A flotilla of rowing ships always goes and comes through the tube into the accompaniment of cries from boatmen and squeals of joy from tourists. The cost of celebrity is overcrowding: it’s unusual to be among a privileged few enjoying the grotto’s attractiveness.
The full-day Capri Private Day Tour from Naples or Sorrento whisks you to this glamorous island via jetfoil. You’ll see the striking azure water by Gozzo boat (a typical local boat craft made), admire some of the island’s fascinating rock formations, explore the coastline, and visit the charming towns of Capri or Anacapri.
The island is certainly one of the top destinations in Italy and the best way to reach your hotel or villa in Capri without stress, are the Capri private transfers packages that include the Car Service from Rome to Capri, (from airports and city) or the Car Service from Naples to Capri, (From the airport, train station, and city). Thes packages are available from all over Italy.
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TOP ATTRACTION #2 – Naples’s Archaeological Museum
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An unrivalled selection of historical palaces, mosaics and paintings.
The top levels of Naples have three major museums, a fort, parks, and private villas with sweeping views of the bay and city. Begin halfway up, in the world-class Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (Wed-Mon 9 am–7.30 pm) at the northern border of the Centro Storico, adjacent to Piazza Cavour.
The museum’s unsurpassed selection of antiquities encircles the finest of the paintings found in the Pompeii, Herculaneum and Phlegraean Fields websites, in addition to the mythical Farnese set of Roman statues that Charles III of Bourbon inherited from his mom, Elisabetta Farnese. So unexcelled have been its miracles, it became a crucial stop on almost any 18th-century traveller’s Grand Tour.
There’s a massive amount to see, and it is not made easier by the continuing recovery program. Visitors need to compete with the constant rearrangement of unexpected and galleries area closures.
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The ground floor is chiefly dedicated to Roman copies of this work of the most significant sculptors of ancient Greece. The famed Tyrannicides, striding to attack, are copies of a backup made in Athens from 440BC to substitute the first, taken by Persians. The undisputed highlights of the Farnese collection would be the strong Hercules and the grandiose Farnese Bull.
The latter, miraculously carved from one gigantic block of marble, depicts the legend of Dirce, attached into a bull by Antiope’s sons as punishment for attempting to murder their mom. Both enormous statues were located at the 16th-century excavations of the Baths of Caracalla in Rome.
The Exhibits on the mezzanine floor are centred on the Best mosaics and paintings out of Pompeii. Exceptional is the Huge Battle of Issus in the House of the Dancing Faun. Alexander the fantastic charges bare-headed in the abandoned as Persian soldiers attempt to flip the horses of Darius’s chariot for flight. The first statue of the faun and the home was termed, is here also. The Nile Scenes and comprehensive mosaics of marine animals from the adjacent area are in precisely the same residence.
This is also the Place of the Secret Cabinet or Even Gabinetto Segreto. A manned gate results in two chambers comprising over 200 frescoes, mosaics, and explicit fertility symbols and figurines. For decades those were kept concealed since they were deemed too blunt for people screening (a 2nd-century AD amount of Pan copulating with a goat would clarify why).
Upstairs, to the Best, Start Looking for the treasures in the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. This mansion and its garden were a real art gallery. The seated youthful Mercury was discovered there, with all the poised bronze racers along with also the row of muses that lined the backyard pool.
![](https://www.naplesdriverguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/The-Farnese-Bull.jpg)
Also on this floor are chambers comprising domestic things: lamps, mirrors, combs, theatre tickets, shoes, kitchenware, charred meals, the tools in Pompeii’s House of the Surgeon, along with the superb 115-piece silver service in the House of Menander. The top floor is given over into a loaf of Greek and Etruscan pottery, in addition to the museum’s collection of coins.
Just south of this museum is your restored Galleria Principe di Napoli, an architect’s hymn of praise into purchasing. Also nearby, the Accademia di Belle Arti (Via Santa Maria di Costantinopoli; Tue -Sat 10 am – 2 pm; complimentary ) includes a beautiful collection of 17th – 20th-century artwork. South of the on Via Santa Maria di Costantinopoli is your fairly Piazza Bellini, using its literary cafés and statue of the terrific composer.
Beyond that, head during the coated Porta d’Alba using its bookshops into Piazza Dante, a tasteful but active piazza at the end of Via Toledo, residence to fast food, subway and bus termini.
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TOP ATTRACTION #3 – Pompeii villas
![Pompeii villas frescos](https://www.naplesdriverguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Villa-of-mysteries-Pompeii.jpg)
Casa del Fauno is a classic illustration of the city’s beautifully preserved Roman residences.
The second block on the left side is wholly consumed from the Casa del Fauno (House of the Faun), a luxury villa with four dining rooms, one per year, two peristyles plus a little bath which made smart use of the warmth created by the oven at the adjoining kitchen. The majority of the home’s paintings, including the mosaic of Alexander as well as the first dancing faun located in one of those two internal courtyards, are from the Archaeological Museum.
Another block combined, at the Vicolo dei Vettii, is Pompeii’s most famous home, the Casa dei Vettii (House of the Vettii). Carefully restored, it provides a fantastic notion of wealthy merchants resided. Paintings from the dining rooms and rooms reveal cupids engaged in regular activities of the town. Just inside the entrance is a fresco of Priapus, god of fertility, weighing his massive manhood on a scale from a bag of gold.
It was covered with means of a panel that was locked, and guards left a high income by providing people with a glimpse. Now it is out in the open for everybody to view and giggle at. All over Pompeii, you may observe phallic symbols on homes. All these were to ward off the evil eye, very similar to the red plastic or coral amulets used now in southern Italy.
There are several Tours of Pompeii and Amalfi coast private excursion from Naples. The classic tour of the archaeological site takes roughly two hours, so this means you can also combine the visit of the ancient city with another activity. A relaxing day could be to choose a Private tours Pompeii and local wine tasting. At the farm, you’ll make the tour of the winery, and you’ll savor a good traditional Mediterranean menu paired with their best wines.
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TOP ATTRACTION #4 – Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte
![Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte](https://www.naplesdriverguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Museo-Nazionale-di-Capodimonte.jpg)
One of Italy’s most fabulous picture galleries.
Crowning the mountain at the end of Via Capodimonte, at a vast park which once functioned as a royal hunting ground, is the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte (Thu–Tue 8.30 am–7.30 pm), an oasis of calm and refreshing air. Charles III constructed the palace 1738 to home his image collection. Also, he built the Capodimonte ceramic works at the grounds, its extravagantly delicate and elaborate output getting renowned throughout Europe.
There’s tons of ceramic still from the palace, whose sprawling chambers also home one of the best movie galleries in southern Italy. On the first floor, the Farnese collection includes such masterpieces as Masaccio’s Crucifixion, Botticelli’s Madonna and Child with Angels, an early Renaissance treasure, Antea by Parmigianino, the portrait of a young girl believed to be the artist’s buff, and the enormous canvases from the Carracci’s.
Raphael is represented with His portraits of Leo X and 2 Cardinals and Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. Pride of place is given to Titian’s Danaë (1545).
The Galleria Delle Cose Rare includes a dazzling show of valuable things that once graced the Farnese palaces. The chambers outside comprise Flemish paintings, the majority of which were obtained by the Bourbons at the start of the 17th century when the Netherlands was playing an artistic golden age.
Wander through the elaborate Royal Apartments, and marvel at the magnificent ballroom with its giant chandelier, along with the Porcelain Parlour of Queen Maria Amalia, lined with over 3,000 tiles created from King Charles’s ceramic factory. The next floor is given over to Neapolitan art from the 13th to the 18th centuries. One of the ancient works is Simone Martini’s San Ludovico di Tolosa (1317), a masterpiece of Italian Gothic art from San Lorenzo Maggiore. Central to the 17th-century functions in the group would be the Caravaggio canvases, particularly that the Flagellation of Christ (1607–10). The next floor is devoted to contemporary and modern artwork. The celebrity display here’s Andy Warhol’s Vesuvius.
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TOP ATTRACTIONS #5 – Naples’s Duomo
![](https://www.naplesdriverguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Statue-of-San-Gennao-in-the-Duomo.jpg)
In the heart of the Early Centro Storico. North of Via dei Tribunali, on Via del Duomo, is the cathedral of San Gennaro or Duomo (Mon-Sat 8 am–12.30 pm, 4.30–7 pm, Sun 8 am–1.30 pm, 5–7.30 pm; complimentary ). The cathedral is a combination of styles dating back into pre-Christian occasions — there are over a hundred Roman and Greek granite columns incorporated from the 16 piers of its nave. The first Angevin king, Charles I, started the palace in 1272 to the website of a 5th-century church which subsequently had substituted a Roman temple.
The earliest part is another church, Santa Restituta, on a lower level input from the aisle (closed for recovery in the time of writing). The church has been redesigned numerous occasions, after the devastating earthquakes of 1349 and 1456. Its enormous 1407 doors have been integrated into the current facade, completed in 1905.
On the perfect side of the palace, the Cappella di San Gennaro enshrines the relics of the town’s revered patron, San Gennaro. On the first Saturday of May, 19 September, and 16 December, two little phials of the coagulated blood (stored within an ornate silver reliquary) are believed to liquefy. If the blood doesn’t melt, tragedy is thought to strike.
The previous time that the saint didn’t collaborate was in 1980 — when Vesuvius erupted. Under the cathedral are layers of early Roman and Greek Neapolis. Next door, the Museo del Tesoro di San Gennaro (Every day 9 am–6 pm) comprises paintings, silverware, and ex-votos devoted to the saint.
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TOP ATTRACTION #6 – POSITANO
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Among the Gorgeous villages in the Amalfi Coast. Coming from Sorrento, the initial (along with the shore’s most stylish ) stop is Positano, a mess of pastel-hued, cube-shaped homes that spill in terraces down the flanks of a ravine. There’s not anything near par in Positano except that the shore, the semi-sandy Spiaggia Grande. Rather than roads, the city has a community of steep steps. Luckily, it creates a standard circuit against the Amalfi drive across Positano’s only street and rear, coming pretty close to the majority of hotels and linking Positano with neighbouring coastal towns. There are a couple of parking garages that provide only limited expectations of space.
The street doesn’t permeate the oldest portion of Positano and the shore area, nevertheless only accessible on foot through a maze of whitewashed alleys. The main one, Via Dei Mulini, moves the inviting courtyard of this 18th-century Palazzo Murat, (currently a gracious resort; for additional info, click here) where summer concerts are held. The walkway is lined with stands of hotel styles, the wares of sandal-makers, and galleries of each description.
Positano was once famous for its casual resort wear, a look that outgrew its allure some decades past. It’s subtly up-market resorts, yachts riding only offshore, informal but very good restaurants, and bougainvillea-draped villas belonging to a global roster of the wealthy and famous. In the peak of summertime, the grey areas of the Spiaggia Grande evaporate under rows of cushioned seats and positions of beached boats for rent, and it is tough to discover a table around the arboured terraces of the most popular seafront restaurants.
A lane across the cliff to the right (west) of the Spiaggia Grande (along with the cement Marina Grande dock there) winds beyond a round watchtower. It contributes to Fornillo Beach, also recruited by beach-chair tenants. Quite a few idyllic uncrowded coves are local, attained by using a rowing boat or being carried out with personal service (see bureau stalls set up on coast for these brief trips ). Boat excursions farther afield are hot, to fishing villages up and down the shore and out into the three personal isles that I Galli, once possessed by the ballet star Rudolf Nureyev and at the hands of some European consortium.
For those who chose beautiful Sorrento as the base for their stay, there are several ways to see this town: by car, bus, boat, or organized tour, but from Naples city, the option available is the classic Private Tour: Positano, Amalfi, and Ravello Day Trip from Naples, where you can craft your own itinerary along this spectacular stretch of coast, with the help of your knowledgeable driver-guide.
Perhaps after Capri, this village is the second most popular seaside tourist resort in Italy. Its location and architectural style make this place unique, but at the same time difficult to reach by public transport.
With a few simple steps, you can easily book a convenient private transfer,
get a professional driver, and reach this dreaming location with a comfortable car or a minivan. Private Drivers run from all over Italy offering very often the Car Service from Rome to Positano. Direct flights from all over the world arrive at the intercontinental FCO airport near Rome, therefore the distance is acceptable and you can opt to reach Amalfi Coast first, with a Car Service from Rome airport to Positano.
The nearest airport is Capodichino in Naples. Only in high season, American tourists can get Positano by direct flights from New York to Naples, and the Car Service from Naples airport to Positano.
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TOP ATTRACTION #7 – Villa Cimbrone in Ravello
![Villa Cimbrone in Ravello](https://www.naplesdriverguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Villa-Cimbrone-in-Ravello.jpg)
This clifftop town captivated Wagner, D.H. Lawrence, Greta Garbo and lots of more.
A brief walk in the monastery contributes to Ravello’s other enchanting gardens, the Villa Cimbrone (summer daily 9 am–8 pm; chilly 9 am–sunset). This stunning residence (currently working as a resort and garden would be the caprice of a 19th-century English proprietor who made it from old pieces and pieces.
The romantic setting isn’t diminished by a plaque recording the celestial Greta Garbo’ stole’ hours of essential delights’ here with Leopold Stokowski at the spring of 1938. After a tree-lined street is a bust-lined clifftop belvedere on the initial point of Ravello’s ridge, whose viewpoint over the whole Bay of Salerno, wrote neighborhood resident writer Gore Vidal, was’the most delightful on earth’.
A panoramic street from Ravello winds across the hills to combine with the Naples–Salerno autostrada in Nocera. This alternate route makes it effortless to make a visit to Pompeii at a day excursion in the Amalfi coast. It is obvious to say that a Private tour excursion from Naples on the Amalfi Coast, will guarantee you more relaxation to visit Ravello and the other charming villages of the famous coast.
The Amalfi Coast and many of its most famous villages, especially in the high season, are also a chaotic place, but Ravello stands out mainly because it is suitable for those who love to relax.
As mentioned above, even to get here there are no connections with trains or other types of public transport. Booking the Car Service from Rome to Ravello is the fastest and most convenient solution available.
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TOP ATTRACTION #8 – Naples’s Pizza
![](https://www.naplesdriverguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/The-Pizza-in-Naples.jpg)
Still, the best place in the world to sample the real article. The pizza of Naples has defeated the planet, although the limp, soggy stuff often dished up overseas as quickly food bears minimal similarity to the actual thing.
Since the early 19th century Neapolitan pizzerias are friendly and relaxed places where people can eat cheaply and. The essential of actual’ pizza is at the brick oven along with the massive temperature which produces the dough puffed and crispy around the borders. That’s the reason why pizza is generally served just in the day: not many eateries could crank up their ovens to maximum warmth by lunchtime.
The Margherita pizza is called after Queen Margherita, who in 1889 desired to try out the food of those people, and picked this elementary version as her favourite. Allegedly, she had been patriotically enticed by the tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, oregano, and basil of its topping, representing that the red, white, and green of the Italian flag.
Other real Neapolitan pizzas include Napoletana, made with tomatoes, mozzarella, and anchovies; marinara, an effortless blend of fresh berries and succulent new-season’s garlic, along with Quattro stagioni, the famous Four Seasons, split into quarters with anchovy strips, then stacked high with many different toppings.
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TOP ATTRACTION N°9 – Herculaneum
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Its ruins have afforded more paintings than Pompeii.
Only 12km (8 miles) southeast of the centre of Naples (Ercolano channel on the Circumvesuviana line), at the base of Vesuvius, Herculaneum (named after its mythical founder Hercules) is beautifully empty of those audiences that inundate Pompeii. With only 5,000 inhabitants, the ancient city of Herculaneum was somewhat smaller, more beautiful location compared to its more prominent, brasher neighbour.
While Pompeii was crushed beneath falling volcanic debris and crimson cinders, Herculaneum was stuffed from the ground up by ash and pumice carried onto a torrent of ground-hugging superheated gas. Roofs didn’t cave. The town was only inundated by a flood which covered it into a typical depth of 20m (65ft).
This semi-liquid muck chilled and hardened to encase and protect balconies, food, furniture around the tables, and even glass window panes and wax writing pills. Once detected, the soft tufa sandstone was comparatively simple to split out. But, contemporary Ercolano sits right on top of the website and half of those ancient city remains unexcavated.
You can pair the visit of this city with a tour of Naples, with MT. Vesuvius, opt for a wine tasting and obviously you can choose a Private day trip to Pompeii and Herculaneum from Naples.
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TOP ATTRACTION #10 – Piazza del Plebiscito
![Piazza del Plebiscito](https://www.naplesdriverguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Piazza-del-Plebiscito.jpg)
This huge semicircular square is home to the massive church of San Francesco di Paola.
At the end of Via Santa Lucia, turn left into Via C Console, which opens into the Piazza del Plebiscito. The vast semicircular square was used as a car park for a long time, but it had been cleared of visitors throughout the 1990s cleanup effort and is currently a popular meeting point — its arcades lined with bright pubs and artisan stores.
The piazza commemorates the incorporation of this Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to the Italian sovereign country in 1860, an occasion that deprived Naples of its primary role as funding. The square is dominated on one side by the Palazzo Reale (Royal Palace) and the other from the domed church of San Francesco di Paola.
The grimly imposing Palazzo Reale ( palace: Thu–Tue 9 am–8 pm, courtyard: before 7 pm in summer, 6 pm in winter charge for the castle, the patio is free, gardens closed for recovery ) was initially assembled by Spanish rulers from the early 17th century. On the other hand, the palace takes its character by the vacation of the Bourbon monarchs and of Joachim Murat, who dwelt during his brief reign as king of Naples along with his spouse, Napoleon’s sister, Caroline Bonaparte.
The Savoy King Umberto I set up the statues on the facade. From left to right they’re Norman Roger I, Federick II of Hohenstaufen, Charles I of Anjou, Alfonso I of Aragon, the Habsburg-Spanish emperor Charles V, Charles III of Bourbon, Murat and Vittorio Emanuele II of Savoy.
Allied bombs have severely damaged the palace in 1943 and from the occupying forces. When the Italian authorities recovered the construction, its imperial flats had to become refurbished. They’re now arranged as a museum, with paintings and period furniture out of various sources. The palace also houses two additional appeals.
The first is that the Biblioteca Nazionale ( Mon-Fri 8.30 am-7 pm, Sat 8.30 am-1.30 pm; free with ID card), the most important public library in southern Italy, holding among other paintings a 1485 copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy, illustrated with Botticelli engravings. The second therefore the Museums, a record of memorabilia in the local opera house (http://www.memus.squarespace.com; Tue and Thu-Sat 9 am-5 pm; Sun 9 am-2 pm).
Opposite the palace, the massive church of San Francesco di Paola daily Jul-Aug 6.30 am-8 pm, Apr-Jun, Sep-Oct till 7 pm, Nov-Mar till 6 pm; complimentary ) was constructed in 1817 and modelled on the Pantheon at Rome. Outside are two statues of Ferdinand IV along with his father, Charles III of Bourbon, equally by Canova.
Backing on the palace on Piazza Trieste e Trento is the Teatro San Carlo (box office: Via San Carlo,98/F, tel: 0848 002 008; tours daily 10.30 am-4.30 pm; cost; opera year from Nov or even Dec-May, however with concerts annually).
Italy’s most prestigious opera house following La Scala in Milan is also the oldest continuously performing opera house in Europe. It was built for Charles III at 1737 in just eight months and then rebuilt after a fire in 1816. Thought cloudy outside, the wealthy red-and-gold hall interior s dazzling—Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, and Verdi all written operas for San Carlo.
Opposit, the cavernous, glass-roofed Galleria Umberto I had been a showcase as it was finished in 1890. Now it’s lined with a range of stores and cafès, but stay strangely vacant despite the busy roads out.
Finally reverse the theatre is your lavish Belle Epoque Gran Caffè Gambrinus, whort seeing to get a coffee and a cake or an early evening aperitif. After the haunt of artists and writers, it’s perfect, if the noisy place for people-watching.