Naples With Kids
A volcano across the bay, laundry across the streets, scooters everywhere and the best pizza on earth for five euro. Naples is loud and chaotic and it is the Italian city kids ask to go back to.
Nicole Damiano, ASTA Verified Travel Advisor with FG Luxury Travel
Is Naples good for kids?
Yes, with the right base and a plan. Pizza, tunnels under the city, a castle on a rock, a car free seafront, funiculars, a volcano and Pompeii. It is loud and crowded, and kids who like Rome love it.
How many days do you need in Naples?
Three nights for the city and Pompeii. Four if you add Herculaneum, Vesuvius or a day on Procida.
How do you get from Naples to Pompeii?
The Circumvesuviana train from Napoli Centrale to Pompei Scavi takes about 35 minutes. The Campania Express runs the same route with air conditioning and seats a few times a day.
Is Naples safe for families?
The historic center, Chiaia, the lungomare and the Vomero are comfortable for families day and evening. Watch bags and phones in crowds and around the central station, and use the fixed fare taxis.
When is the best time to visit Naples?
April to June and September to October for warm, dry weather and comfortable days at Pompeii. July and August are very hot and Pompeii has almost no shade.
The Most Alive City In Italy
Naples is the city Rome and Florence are not. Three thousand years old, built on top of itself, with Greek streets under Roman streets under a baroque city that never got cleaned up. The old center is a single long street called Spaccanapoli with laundry overhead, shrines on the corners, scooters squeezing past and a pizzeria every 50 feet.
Across the bay is Vesuvius, and under it are Pompeii and Herculaneum, both an easy train ride. The seafront is car free and the islands are 40 minutes by boat. Three nights covers the city and one of the ruins.
Getting Around
The old center is on foot. Metro Line 1 has art stations worth riding for their own sake, and three funiculars climb to the Vomero hill. Taxis are cheap but agree the fare first. The Circumvesuviana and the Campania Express trains go to Pompeii and Herculaneum from the central station.
Neighborhoods worth basing in
The historic center
Spaccanapoli, the Decumani and the streets around them. Churches, pizzerias, the nativity workshops, the underground tours. Loud until late, cheap, and everything on foot. For families who want to be in it.
Chiaia and the lungomare
The elegant seafront neighborhood west of the center. Car free promenade along the water, the Villa Comunale park, playgrounds, the castle on the rocks and quieter nights. My default base with little kids.
The Vomero
The hill above the city, reached by funicular. Residential, cooler, with the castle and the view, a big park and a pedestrian shopping street. Fifteen minutes down to the center by funicular.
Grand Hotel Vesuvio
On the lungomare facing the castle and the bay, with big rooms that fit a family and a rooftop restaurant with Vesuvius out the window. The grand old splurge.
Romeo Hotel
A modern tower by the port with a rooftop pool, family rooms and the ferries to the islands outside the door. The pool is the reason in summer.
Hotel Piazza Bellini
On a quiet square in the historic center with simple family rooms and the pizzerias of the old town a few minutes away. Good value for being in the middle of it.
The Three I Build Every Naples Trip Around
Spaccanapoli and the historic center
The long straight street that cuts the old city in two, with the Decumani running parallel. Walk it end to end, past the shrines, the fried pizza windows and the scooters. Turn into Via San Gregorio Armeno, where craftsmen make nativity figures all year, including ones of soccer players and politicians, then go underground on the Napoli Sotterranea tour through the Greek aqueducts 130 feet below the street. Kids over six love the tunnels.
The lungomare and the Castel dell’Ovo
The seafront promenade along Via Caracciolo is car free, a mile and a half of water on one side and Vesuvius straight ahead. Walk or rent bikes, stop at the Villa Comunale park, and finish at the Castel dell’Ovo, the castle on a rock in the water with the little fishing harbor below it full of boats and seafood restaurants. Sunset here is the postcard.
The old streets and the Vomero funicular
Look up in the old quarters and the laundry hangs across the street from balcony to balcony. Walk the Quartieri Spagnoli, the grid of narrow streets above Via Toledo, then ride the Centrale funicular up to the Vomero, three minutes, for the Castel Sant’Elmo and the view of the whole bay, the city and the volcano in one frame. The park of Villa Floridiana is next to the top station for a run.
Family Time, Built In: Naples With Kids
Naples with kids is pizza, tunnels, a castle on a rock, a volcano and a seafront to run along. It is noisy and it works. These are the pieces that work.
The tunnels of Napoli Sotterranea
Riding the funicular up the Vomero
The art stations on Metro Line 1
The nativity workshops on Via San Gregorio Armeno
PARK & DOWNTIME PICK
The Villa Comunale, the long park between the lungomare and Chiaia. Playgrounds, a carousel, old trees, a little aquarium at the end and the sea across the road. For the big view, the Virgiliano park on the Posillipo hill has playgrounds and terraces over the whole bay.
Five Things To Eat In Naples
Pizza margherita
Sfogliatella
Gelato on the lungomare
Espresso at the bar
Babà and pastriesNicole’s Perspective
The city I used to teach and now plan
I taught the ancient world for eight years and Pompeii was the lesson that worked every time, a whole city stopped in one afternoon in 79 AD with the bread still in the ovens. Naples is where that lesson comes true, and the city on top of it is as alive as the one underneath was.
I plan it as three nights, usually after Rome and before the Amalfi Coast. One day for the old center and the tunnels, one for Pompeii or Herculaneum, one for the seafront and the hill. Families expect to be overwhelmed and come home saying it was the best food of the trip and the kids were never bored.
The Day Trip: Pompeii
Thirty five minutes on the Circumvesuviana train or the Campania Express, Pompeii is a Roman city of 11,000 people buried by Vesuvius in 79 AD and dug out almost whole. Walk the stone streets with the cart ruts, go into houses with their paintings, stand in the amphitheater and see the bakery with its ovens. Hire a guide for two hours, the kids get more from it, then let them wander. Herculaneum, 20 minutes closer, is smaller, better preserved and easier with little kids. Bring water, hats and snacks, there is little shade.
Things I Would Tell A Friend Before They Booked
How Many Days
Three nights covers the old center, the seafront and Pompeii. Four adds Herculaneum, Vesuvius or an island.
Spaccanapoli and the tunnels on day one, Pompeii on day two, the lungomare and the Vomero on day three.
Add the bus up Vesuvius to walk the crater rim, or the hydrofoil to Procida for a pastel harbor and a beach.
Seventy minutes to Rome by train, an hour to Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast by train or boat. Ten days covers Rome, Naples, Pompeii and the coast.
Naples With Kids, Answered
Is Naples good for kids?
Yes, with the right base and a plan. Pizza, tunnels under the city, a castle on a rock, a car free seafront, funiculars, a volcano and Pompeii. It is loud and crowded, and kids who like Rome love it.
How many days do you need in Naples?
Three nights for the city and Pompeii. Four if you add Herculaneum, Vesuvius or a day on Procida.
How do you get from Naples to Pompeii?
The Circumvesuviana train from Napoli Centrale to Pompei Scavi takes about 35 minutes. The Campania Express runs the same route with air conditioning and seats a few times a day.
Is Naples safe for families?
The historic center, Chiaia, the lungomare and the Vomero are comfortable for families day and evening. Watch bags and phones in crowds and around the central station, and use the fixed fare taxis.
When is the best time to visit Naples?
April to June and September to October for warm, dry weather and comfortable days at Pompeii. July and August are very hot and Pompeii has almost no shade.
Ready To Put Naples On The Calendar
Send me your dates and your kids’ ages and I will set Naples between Rome and the coast, pick the base, book the pizza and time Pompeii.
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