"Naples Underground," now famous throughout the world, has a long history that dates back centuries before the birth of Christ, when men dug tunnels and galleries for various purposes, such as funeral catacombs or the construction of cisterns and aqueducts for water supplies.

Thinking about this experience, the mind immediately goes to the entrance to Piazza San Gaetano, near Via dei Tribunali, the most famous route through the Neapolitan underground.

Yet there is another, less known one, which starting from the Basilica of Pietrasanta, leads to the ancient Aqueduct of the Bolla , the first city aqueduct created by the Greeks and expanded by the Romans between the Caponapoli area and the sea outlet of the Chiatamone.

Using an “ archaeological elevator ” with large windows, you immerse yourself in the bowels of the tuff, a light yet stable material, up to 35 meters below ground level in that area of the major decumanus where until the 6th century AD a temple dedicated to Diana stood.

Here today, after having been closed to the public for a long time, the Water Museum can be visited, specifically two ancient cisterns, the " Cisterna delle anguille" , smaller, with a capacity of 150 cubic meters, and the " Cisterna del Principe" , so called because it is located exactly under the palace of Prince Filangieri: 10 meters long, 20 meters wide, 5 meters deep and with a capacity of 400 cubic meters.

But walking around it is also possible to spot many graffiti and mosaics from the Roman period.

This aqueduct, about a kilometer long and built between the late 1800s and early 1900s, it served to collect water from the Serino river to supply the entire city.

Inside the cisterns there are still the " grappiate ", that is, the small step-like cavities that the well diggers used to clean the cisterns and collect the water to bring to the surface.

Making the visit even more captivating is the Moon Room : here, a huge, very realistic moon has been suspended in the centre of walls studded with iridescent stars.
The Moon represents the origin of this basilica, which was built on the remains of a temple dedicated to Diana , who besides being the Goddess of the Hunt, was also known as the Goddess of the Moon.

With the arrival of cholera in Naples in 1885, the use of these cisterns was banned due to the extremely high level of water pollution. From that moment on, the Neapolitan subsoil began to be used as a landfill for all types of waste until the Second World War, when many tunnels were converted into air raid shelters to protect against bombing.

In some places, the tuff walls were dug out and shaped to create stairways through which people could ascend and descend from the world above, to escape the bombings and take refuge underground, which had become their new home.

At this point in the visit, there's the option of watching a projection of an air raid on the ceiling, faithfully recreating what happened during the war. The roof virtually tears apart, and the planes pass overhead and begin bombing.

A very delicate moment, perhaps heavy for those who are particularly sensitive, which however concludes with a clip created by two actors who stage moments of everyday life to remind us how Neapolitans, even in moments of darkness, with their wit and their attitude know how to find the light .