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The Silence, the blackness, the mystery of thousands 
of years of secrets hidden beneath the noisy city above . . .

This is Neopolitan Urban Speologist, Michele Quaranta in an ancient Greco-Roman aqueduct that runs beneath Naples. I am 6'2" tall and pretty wide shouldered and can attest to the tight squeeze. We have roamed for kilometers under the city using these old aqueducts and other tunnels and passageways. Notice the original chisel marks in the tufo sandstone by Greek workmen, marks that have survived for thousands of years.

It is difficult to explain to people how huge the cavities and caverns are beneath the city. Locate the speologist in the hard hat in the bright center of the picture below. You can get an idea of how overwhelming it is to crawl your way through an old aqueduct or tunnel then suddenly reach a space so huge and vaulting that it is hard to get your bearings. Some 'ceilings' are easily more than  40 to 50 meters high. Note the sloping sides. When the yellow tufo sandstone was excavated in huge blocks to build the palaces and villas above, early engineers knew to make the cavity bottle shaped leaving strong  sloping 'shoulders' to support the above-ground structures.

Photo Credits: Clemente Esposito, Michele Quaranta, Vincenzo Albertini, Lucio Bartoli, Mario Cianciulli, Fabio Collin,
                       Francesco Lombardi, Franco Schiattarella, thanks to "Napoli Sopra & Sotto" Luca Torre and L.A.E.S.