Naples Underground...

Napoli Sotterranea is a very interesting place for sure!  We were not the only people who had the idea to go underground on a very rainy Saturday.  It was a very worth it though.

"In the underground of Naples lies a labyrinth of tunnels, tanks and cavities that form a real city which is the negative of the city on surface. The underground city spreads below the entire old town, its myths and legends are still alive in the imagination of all the Neapolitans"

 It was quite a unique experience to walk down more than 100 feet underground and be shown the old Roman aqueducts and then after the water got diseased, it was abandoned and then used as WWII bomb shelters, to hold 2000 people.  It was amazing to walk through these tunnels and come into caves that were huge.  They had taken a lot of the stones to make the city of Naples out of these 'caves' and brought them up into the city.  They showed us where the aqueducts ran and we even got to go on one with only the light of candles to lead the way.  It was so narrow that I had to walk at sort of an angle to let my shoulders through, the kids thought it was great that they were so skinny that they could go through without doing that :).  The local university has actually set up a experiment down there to see how plants can grow in a controlled environment too.  It was all a very neat experience.  We had an English tour guide and he was very animated in his job, but not very patient with other people's noise!  I didn't get a whole lot of good pictures because it was difficult with so dark and then the flash was SO bright when your eyes were not used to it.  Oh well, hopefully some memories will be brought to life when they see the few pictures I got.

 

 The picture above is of the kids in front of a bunch of stuff they had found from the WWII era...little kids toys, sewing machines, lots of miscellaneous items.

After we got back up to the city level of Naples, they took us to a recently found Roman theater that was found within the plastered walls of an apartment complex.  After the owners were paid to relocate, the archeologists peeled away the plaster and found the arches to be part of the back stage in their main living room and then their wine cellar was part of it too.  You can actually still see the windows that connect some other residence apartments.  It was very interesting to see how they had just built right over the ruins...they get to see them all the time so they must not have cared to much about it.