Naples 5 Day Itinerary (No Tourist Traps)
Five days is our 4-day plan plus a full day at Capodimonte, the Bourbon-era museum and park most visitors skip entirely because it sits outside the Centro Storico’s usual walking radius. Everything still happens inside city limits; for the full week version see our 6-day itinerary .
Book these before you go:
- Cappella Sansevero timed entry : closed Tuesdays, more than 15 minutes late forfeits the slot
- Napoli Sotterranea skip-the-line : walk-up queues run up to 90 minutes
- A pizza-making class or food tour : the easiest way to taste more than one pizzeria in one sitting
- Your Naples hotel : Centro Storico if noise doesn’t bother you, Vomero if it does
| Day | Focus |
|---|---|
| 1 | Centro Storico, Cappella Sansevero, Duomo di San Gennaro, pizza |
| 2 | MANN, Napoli Sotterranea, Quartieri Spagnoli |
| 3 | Castel dell’Ovo, Castel Nuovo, Chiaia, Vomero |
| 4 | Metro art stations, coffee culture, a trattoria dinner |
| 5 | Capodimonte museum and park |
Day 1: The Veiled Christ, San Gennaro and Spaccanapoli
Start in the Centro Storico while the alleys are still just busy, not solid. Gesù Nuovo’s oddly bulging tufa facade and Santa Chiara’s majolica-tiled cloister are both free and both worth 20 minutes before the crowds thicken. Walk San Gregorio Armeno, then present yourself at the Cappella Sansevero for your booked slot: EUR12 standard, EUR8 for ages 18-26, more than 15 minutes late forfeits the ticket entirely. It’s a single small chapel built around a single sculpture, the Veiled Christ, and the whole visit runs under 30 minutes.
The Duomo di San Gennaro is a five-minute walk away. The nave is free, open daily roughly 8:00-19:30; the separate Cappella del Tesoro (EUR13, EUR9.50 reduced) is worth the extra ticket only if San Gennaro’s cult specifically interests you.
Dinner is pizza. L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele has served exactly two pizzas since 1870, margherita and marinara, worth the numbered-ticket queue once, just not on a Friday or Saturday night. Any Spaccanapoli pizzeria on a weeknight does the same two classics without the line.
Day 2: MANN, Napoli Sotterranea and the Quartieri Spagnoli
Give MANN the whole morning. At EUR20 full price (EUR2 for EU citizens 18-25), it holds the mosaics, frescoes and bronzes lifted from Pompeii and Herculaneum, plus the Farnese Marbles. Closed Tuesdays, open 9:00-19:30, last entry 18:30.
After lunch, descend into Napoli Sotterranea : a 90-minute guided walk through Greco-Roman aqueduct cisterns and WWII air-raid shelters, EUR15, departing hourly from Piazza San Gaetano. Book ahead rather than risk the walk-up queue, 10 to 90 minutes depending on the hour.
Spend the evening in the Quartieri Spagnoli. Eat standing up: pizza fritta for a few euro, sfogliatella for EUR2-4, espresso at the counter for under EUR1.20.
Day 3: Castel dell’Ovo, Castel Nuovo, Chiaia and Vomero
Morning at Castel dell’Ovo: entry free, Monday-Saturday roughly 9:00-19:30, Sunday and holidays 9:00-14:00, interior access intermittent during maintenance. The Lungomare Caracciolo promenade past it is always open. Castel Nuovo is EUR6 standard, EUR4 reduced, open roughly 9:00-18:00 Monday-Saturday, closed Sundays; parts of the fortress are under renovation, confirm what’s open before you commit time.
Afternoon in Chiaia, then the funicular up to Vomero for Castel Sant’Elmo and the Certosa di San Martino, the best skyline view over the bay. Dinner up there.
Day 4: Metro art, coffee culture and a slower pace
Ride Metro Line 1 to Toledo station, then one stop to Municipio, built over an excavated slice of ancient Neapolis. Neither costs more than a standard metro fare, both worth riding for their own sake.
Caffè Gambrinus on Via Chiaia has served coffee since 1860; treat it as a stop for sfogliatella and espresso, not a sit-down meal. Wander back through San Gregorio Armeno if you didn’t linger there on Day 1, then a proper trattoria dinner doing genovese or baccalà.
Day 5: Capodimonte, a full day away from the noise
Capodimonte earns a full day of its own: EUR15 entry, free the first Sunday of the month plus April 25, June 2 and November 4, housed in a Bourbon-era royal palace on a hill above the city. The collection includes a Caravaggio Flagellation and works by Titian and Bellini, and it draws a fraction of the crowds MANN does despite a comparable collection, largely because it sits outside the Centro Storico’s usual walking radius.
Is Capodimonte worth a full day, or just a couple of hours? A full day, if you actually read the wall text and walk the park. The Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the palace’s grounds, is free and worth an hour on its own for the views back down over the city and bay. Check current Capodimonte hours before you go, since the museum periodically extends evening hours for temporary shows.
Come back down into the center for dinner; a full day up the hill is enough distance from Spaccanapoli’s noise for one trip, and the contrast is the point.
Five days in Naples the city, no day trips, is more time than most guides think the city needs and exactly the right amount. Book the Sansevero and Sotterranea slots before you land; everything else on this list is walk-up.