Nearby attractions
VICOOL NAPLES
For your stay in the shadow of Vesuvius, through history, art, delicious food and natural beauty
Dante square
Piazza Dante is one of the most important squares in Naples and is located in the historic city centre. It forms the beginning of via Toledo and, through the access to Port'Alba on the north side of the square, it flows along the Decumanus major. In the center of the square stands a large statue of Dante Alighieri, the work of sculptors Tito Angelini and Tommaso Solari junior, inaugurated on 13 July 1871 and placed on a base designed by the engineer Gherardo Rega. Today on its sides, more secluded, there are the windows of the exits of line 1 of the underground. The square was redesigned and refurnished on the occasion of the works for the underground, completed in 2002. The entire hemicycle thus became a pedestrian area. Furthermore, in the square there are four monumental churches: that of the Immacolata degli Operatori Sanitari, of Santa Maria di Caravaggio, of San Domenico Soriano and of San Michele a Port'Alba.
Piazza Bellini
Piazza Bellini is a square located on the decumanus major of Naples and one of the most lively in the city due to the large number of restaurants and cafés.
The square, rectangular in shape, has always been one of the major intellectual meeting places of the city because it is surrounded by numerous universities and very close to the Academy of Fine Arts and the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella, where important national composers studied, including also Vincenzo Bellini, who gives his name to the square and who is represented in it with a statue of Alfonso Balzico from 1886 placed in the centre.
Archaeological Museum
The National Archaeological Museum of Naples (MANN) is a historic museum, one of the most important in the city. Boasting the richest and most valuable heritage of works of art and artefacts of archaeological interest in Italy, it is considered one of the most important archaeological museums in the world, if not the most important, as regards the history of the Roman era. It has a total exhibition area of 12,650 sq m.
The building that currently houses the museum is the Palazzo degli Studi, built in 1585 as a "cavalry barracks". The building represents a certain architectural significance being in fact one of the most impressive monumental buildings in Naples. It insists on the area of an ancient necropolis of the Greek Neapolis: the necropolis of Santa Teresa.
Capodimonte museum
The National Museum of Capodimonte is located inside the palace of the same name, in the locality of Capodimonte: it houses galleries of ancient art, one of contemporary art and a historic apartment. It was officially inaugurated in 1957, even if the halls of the palace have hosted works of art since 1758. It mainly preserves paintings, widely distributed in the two main collections, namely the Farnese one, which includes some great names in Italian painting and international (including Raphael, Titian, Parmigianino, Bruegel the Elder, El Greco, Ludovico Carracci, Guido Reni), and that of the Galleria Napoletana, which collects works from churches in the city and its surroundings, transported to Capodimonte as a precaution from the suppressions onwards (Simone Martini, Colantonio, Caravaggio, Ribera, Giordano, Solimena). Also important is the collection of contemporary art, the only one of its kind in Italy, in which Andy Warhol's Vesuvius stands out.
San Gregorio Armeno
Via San Gregorio Armeno is a street in the historic center of Naples, famous for its Nativity scene shops. The Nativity scene tradition of San Gregorio Armeno has a remote origin: in the classical era there was a temple dedicated to Ceres on the street, to which the citizens offered as votive offerings small terracotta statuettes, made in nearby shops. The birth of the Neapolitan Nativity scene is naturally much later and dates back to the end of the eighteenth century.
Today via San Gregorio Armeno is known throughout the world as the exhibition center of the craft shops located here which now make figurines for cribs, both canonical and original, all year round (usually every year the more eccentric artisans make also figurines with the features of the most popular people of the year).
The actual exhibitions begin in the period around the Christmas holidays, usually from the beginning of November to January 6th.