Secret escape tunnels beneath the city
built by Bourbon Kings . . .
Smugglers and criminals move quietly below. . .
4 Thousand year old Grecian burial crypts. . .
Just part of the "Sottosuolo" of bella Napoli !!
| King Ferdinand II commissioned a secret escape tunnel in 1853 from the royal palace beneath Mt. Echia exiting near the Bay at present day Piazza Vittoria. The huge tunnel allowed passage of horse drawn wagons. Part of it was incorporated into a huge theatre, the Metropolitan. | This is the Crypta Neapolitano, a tunnel dug in the 1st Century AD to provide passage from central Naples to the outlying Phlegran area now known as Fuorigrotta. It is 2,296 feet long and was used for more than 2 thousand years by kings and viceroys. One end of the tunnel, seen below was used for a parking garage for many years. |
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| Greek and Roman Naples spanned 650BC to roughly 476AC and this is but one of many Grecian Hypogea or crypts beneath the city. Pliny the Elder wrote of the Naples area as "Terrae laboriae" or land full of caverns! | This is the Grotta di Seiano built in the 1st century BC 2,600 feet long, it was discovered in 1840 and restored by King Ferdinand the Bourbon. It runs beneath the hills of Posillipo and has two ventilation shafts which open to the sea. |
A speologist inching his way through a caved-in area is greeted by a skull and human remains. Just one of the many mysteries hidden in the bowels of this ancient city. |
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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.