The Naples Tunnel

So-called crypta Neapolitana of Seneca

by Caroline Lawrence

Traveling from the Roman resort of Baiae to Naples one day nearly 2000 years ago, the Stoic philosopher Seneca decided to take the land route instead of the short but choppy sea voyage. Part of the road took a shortcut through a mountain by means of the famous Naples Tunnel. But the Crypta Neapolitana turned out to be almost worse than a sea voyage, a virtual ‘visit to death’. In one of his famous Letters to Lucilius, Seneca describes his harrowing journey.

bronze portrait thought by some to depict Seneca

When I had to return from Baiae to Naples, I convinced myself there might be a storm so I wouldn't have to endure another sea voyage. But the road was so waterlogged that I might as well have gone by ship. Anointed with the mud of the road and then dusted in the Naples Tunnel, I felt like a wrestler. Nothing could be longer than that prison, nothing gloomier than the torches that enabled us to see not through the darkness but rather the darkness itself. Had the place any other light sources it would still be clouded by dust which even in the open air is heavy and annoying. How much more so in that tunnel where the dust swirls back on itself. Shut up without any ventilation, it blows into the faces of those who stir it up. In this way we simultaneously endured two opposing inconveniences: on the same road, on the same day we battled both mud and dust. (Letter to Lucilius 57.1-2)

Emerging from the gloom into daylight restored Seneca to his usual good spirits, but thinking about the claustrophobic darkness of the tunnel afterwards prompted him to write about the nature of death and the immortality of the soul. 

Mergellina station seen from Tomb of Virgil

Seneca’s tunnel was in constant use up until about a century ago, when the middle of the tunnel collapsed, but you can still see both ends. The eastern (Neapolitan) entrance is found near the so-called Tomb of Virgil in the Parco Vergiliano a Piedgrotta. Located near Mergellina train station (only a half hour’s walk from Castel dell’Ovo) this Parco Vergiliano (with an e) is not to be confused with the large Parco Virgiliano (with an i) four miles southwest. In 2013 it barely appeared on Google maps but now you can easily locate it by typing in the words Parco Vergiliano a Piedigrotta. It is behind the Church of the Madonna of Piedigrotta and easily reached by taxi or by train to Mergellina. 

Hand-made tile plaque about myrtle at Virgil's Tomb

Virgil, of course, was the great Roman poet who wrote the Eclogues, the Georgics and the Aeneid, my favourite Latin poem. I was lucky enough to visit the Parco Vergiliano in September 2013 with Andante Travels. In this densely populated city without many public gardens the so-called site of Virgil’s tomb offers a cool, green oasis. Flanking the paths are plants and herbs mentioned in the works of Virgil, all beautifully labelled with tile plaques giving descriptions and the Latin names.

Another plaque tells about Virgil and you can see a modern bust of him in a niche, done in 1930 on the 2000th anniversary of his birth. Although the poet was born in Mantua and studied in Rome, he called Naples his home.

The plaque reads:

A modern bust of the ancient poet Virgil

Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces...

Mantua bore me, the Calabrians snatched me away, now Naples holds me. I sang of pastures, countrysides, leaders...

The steep hill is formed of honey-coloured tufa cloaked in ivy and dripping with vines. Like honeycomb, the soft rock is perfect for tombs, niches and tunnels, which the Neapolitans call galleria. The biggest of these tunnels is the dramatic Crypta Neapolitana – Seneca’s tunnel. Next to it is one contender for Virgil’s tomb, a cave carved into the hill with a bust of Virgil in a niche nearby. Nearby is another tomb, that of Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) a hunchback poet who was a great worshipper of Virgil. Sometimes this area is called the Hill of the Poets. 

Medieval fresco of Santa Maria dell’Idria above the tunnel

Undaunted by the background noise of the Mergellina train and police sirens, our Andante guide proclaimed Tennyson’s Ode to Virgil. Then he told us there is another possible tomb to Virgil on a higher level. 
Climbing the brick stairs with the aid of a sturdy wooden handrail we found a small Roman aqueduct that ran above Seneca’s tunnel. From up here you can get a closer look at a niche with a faded fresco of Madonna and Child. Mounting more stairs takes you to a beehive-shaped tomb that also might be Virgil’s. This atmospheric freestanding cylindrical tomb is of the columbarium type, with niches for ash-filled urns. There is a convenient tripod where you can burn fragrant bay leaves in memory of the great poet. The view from up here is breathtaking; you can see right across the bay to Vesuvius. 

Caroline Lawrence in Virgil's tomb

Although Virgil’s real burial place is probably lost in antiquity, this site became a popular place of pilgrimage. During the Middle Ages the poet became known as a magician. This belief might have started because of one of his poems, the so-called ‘Messianic’ Fourth Eclogue, in which Virgil seems to have miraculously prophesied the birth of Christ. (The poet died in 19 BC.) Other legends grew up around him and by the mid-14th century a book called the Cronaca di Partenope or Chronicle of Parthenope (‘Parthenope’is another name for Naples) recounts some amusing achievements of Virgil the Magician. For example, he made a metal horse that cured all sick horses, a golden fly that kept away all flies, and a magic leech that, thrown into a well, rid all Naples of her leeches. 

Virgil the Magician also placed a magic hen’s egg somewhere in the eponymous Castel dell’Ovo. As long as the egg remains, goes the legend, the castle will stand strong. 

painting of the Naples Tunnel by Gaspar Vanvitelli c 1700

My favourite legend is that Virgil himself drilled the Naples Tunnel merely by turning his intensely poetic gaze on the hill, not unlike Superman with his laser vision. According to one eighteenth century travel writer, the grosso popolo of Naples revered Virgil more for his magical creation of this tunnel than for the Aeneid. So it is fitting that you will find Virgil’s Tunnel near one of his possible tombs in the vibrant city he loved so much. 

My two retellings of stories from Virgil’s Aeneid are The Night Raid, about Nisus and Euryalus from book 9, and Queen of the Silver Arrow, about Camilla from books 7 and 11. The reading level is easy but the content is dark.

A version of this post was originally published on the Wonders and Marvels blog. 

12 Tasks for kids on the Bay of Naples

Perseus fresco

I know, I know! "Tasks" doesn't sound like a holiday word. But it's always good to have a few fun goals when you go on vacation, even if it's getting your grandmother one of those tiles she likes so much or sourcing the best local dessert.

So here are 12 child-friendly tasks for you to do in the Bay of Naples. They range from easy to challenging and you will have to get your parents to help!

1 Sorrento is famous for its lemon groves; try a lemon sorbet or - if your parents are agreeable - get one of them to order limoncello after dinner and ask for a sip, but just a sip! It is very strong.

rope marks on the well-head

2 Visit Herculaneum and find ancient rope-marks on one of several marble well-heads by the impluvia (rain-water pools) in some villas.

3 Have Sanbitter (a bright red, non-sweet, non-alcoholic Italian aperitif) and nibbles on the terrace of the Hotel Bellevue Syrene in Sorrento; ask if you can see the Roman rooms downstairs first, to help make the cost of your drink worth it!

funny ducks mosaic in Naples

4 Find the funny ducks mosaic at the National Museum of Archaeology in Naples (right).

5 Visit the so-called Villa of Poppaea AKA Oplontis (at Torre Annunziata on the Circuvesuviana Sorrento-Naples train line) and look at the cake-like layers of tufa (hardened ash) and papilli (light volcanic pebbles) that Vesuvius laid down.

6 Find the public water spouts in Castellammare di Stabia and taste one of seven different types of mineral water.

7 Go all the way into the Blue Grotto in Capri.

Villa of Pollius Felix (model)

8 Visit the model of the Villa of Pollius Felix in Piano di Sorrento (left).

9 Swim in the secret cove of the Villa of Pollius Felix on the Capo di Sorrento. (OK, then, just take a photo...)

10 Find the little fresco of Perseus with the head of Medusa (top of this post) at the Villa San Marco at Castellammare di Stabia. You'll have to get a taxi at Castellammare di Stabia, but it's worth it.

Temple of Mercury, Baia

11 Visit the flooded so-called Temple of Mercury at Baiae. It used to be part of a bath-house but the flooding is caused by a phenomenon known as bradyseism. (Look out for the upside down fig-tree growing in a cave-like vaulted room next door!)

12 Take a hot mud (fango) bath in the oldest spa on the island of Ischia. Or visit one of the modern baths like Negombo.

These "tasks" are adapted from the Roman Mysteries Travel Guide: From Ostia to Alexandria with Flavia Gemina, now available on Kindle. And if you want some good reading, try the three Roman Mysteries set on the Bay of Naples: The Secrets of Vesuvius, The Pirates of Pompeii and The Sirens of Surrentum. Buon Viaggio! 

A Day of Roman Luxury

It's our final full day in the Bay of Naples. The last day for me to glean any last minute goodies for Roman Mystery number 11, Sirens of Surrentum.

I want to explore Baia more, and the amphitheatre at Pozzuoli, but am not sure I can face taking bus, train, metro and pullman to get there. That's Plan A. But it's going to be hot today. So we opt for Plan B, the 9.30 hydrojet from Sorrento to Ischia and from there a ferry to Pozzuoli. If it's impossible to get the ferry to Pozzuoli, we will explore Ischia and I might go to one of the thermal baths there (Plan C). The guide book mentions a neoclassical spa built on the ruins of a Roman bath.

Ischia is a volcanic island, bubbling with hot springs and hot mud. Some of the town names even have the word terme in them from the Latin word thermae meaning 'warm baths'. The baths at Baiae were so opulent that when travellers found their remains they thought they were temples to the gods. They were actually Temples to Pleasure.

Our hydrojet is fast but even so we don't arrive at Ischia Porto – the port town of this little island – until 10.45. I take one look at the rusty ferry to Pozzuoli and decide to go with Plan C, ie. stay on Ischia and try out one of the spas. I know from my guide book that the baths I want are in the next town and that they close at midday, so when a dark Italian with oily, slicked-back hair says 'Taxi? You want taxi?' I negotiate a fee to the Termi Belliazzi at Casamicciola Terme.

On the way, between my broken Italian and his broken English, Pepe the taxi-driver tells me the baths I have chosen aren't very elegant. 'You should try Negumbo or Poseidon's Garden,' he says. But I let him know I'm interested in all things Roman and so he shrugs and settles back to drive. Actually he hunches forward to drive; all the taxis on Ischia are micro-taxies and Pepe is a big man.

We arrive at the Terme Belliazzi about ten minutes later and once I have established that I can have a look at the Roman baths underneath before a massage, Richard goes to a sunny square to do a watercolour.

This spa is like something out of a Fellini movie. I am taken past cublicles and through the half-closed curtain I can glimpse old men wrapped in sheets and moaning softly. On the black and white marble floor are buckets of mud and plastic sheets smeared with mud.

A man called Antonio takes me down to the Roman baths. It is very hot and steamy down here. He shows me where the hot water bubbles up out of the ground and the hoses that now transfer it up to the baths above us. I notice the same vaulted roof as the modern building above.

Antonio also shows me the modern sauna and jacuzzi, both of which are carved from stone and look very Roman. Then I am taken back to the vaulted room with cubicles. I have gathered that I can have a massage with either Antonio or a woman called Rosa. As I have to get totally naked the choice is not difficult.

Rosa is a tanned, cheerful brunette who keeps taking my arm with a firm grip and guiding me here and there. I sense it's going-home time and she wants to go home, but there is no way a man is giving me a massage! As I am undressing she asks if I want 'fango'. I have been hearing this word all morning and now she shows me a contraption above the massage-couch. She pulls a lever and out comes a giant worm of grey mud! This is fango.

'Si,' I reply bravely. 'I'll have the fango.'

Once I am naked I have to climb up onto the pile of mud on the plastic sheet. I do so. Wow! The mud is warm and very slippery. I help Rosa smear it all over and then she wraps me up in the plastic sheet with a cloth sheet around it and I lie there for ten minutes, enveloped in slippery, squelchy, warm grey mud. It is very sensuous!

Every so often Rosa comes in to mop my face, which is sweating. Then, after ten minutes she negotiates me off the couch and hoses me down with mineral water. (Boy am I glad Antonio is not doing this; talk about a 'squirmy'). In the cubicle is also a bathtub full of mineral water and once I am sluiced off I get into that for another ten minutes.

I can tell by the silence outside my curtained cubicle that most people have left this spa. I reckon it's almost twelve. Rosa comes in and asks me once again if I want Antonio to give me my massage. 'No, you please, Rosa,' I say in Italian, and add by way of explanation: 'I'm from England.' (She probably wants to get home to her kids; Italian schools broke up last week...)

Rosa nods cheerfully, takes me to a clean cublicle next door and proceeds to give me a vigorous full-body massage with lemon-scented cream. In Roman times it would have been scented olive-oil of course, but I imagine the luxurious establishments in Baiae would have specialised in hot mud treatments, after all, Baiae is situated on top of sulphurous fumaroles, too.

I give Rosa a nice tip and my last copy of one of my books in Italian, dedicated to her three children. I leave the baths feeling very smooth and relaxed. No wonder rich Romans spent so much time there.

Richard is in a café finishing a nice watercolour of the little park opposite. The owner of the cafe wants him to do a portrait of his son. As payment in advance he gives Richard a bottle of cheap Spanish red wine. Hmmmn.

We get another micro-taxi to take us to various places. Philippe – our new taxi-driver – shows us Negumbo, the spa with turquoise pools of hot water (you go from pool to pool, getting hotter and hotter) and also the Villa di William Walton, where musical recitals are held. After a decent pizza lunch in Casamicciola, we catch a bus back to Ischia Porto.

I want to see the house where The Talented Mr Ripley was filmed and hey! there's Pepe! He knows where the Mr Ripley house is but first he shows us the Roman acqueduct. Yup. It's a Roman acqueduct. Then on to the Palazzo Malcoviti, where Dicky Greenleaf and Marge 'lived'. It's a different colour now but I recognize it. Pepe was actually one of the drivers for the film crew and tells us that 'Anthony Minghella is a very nice man.' I tell him that Minghella's family sells ice cream on the Isle of Wight. Pepe did not know that! Finally Pepe takes us to the foot of the Castello Aragonese. We find a cool shady place to sit, with a view of the castle, and while Richard does another watercolour, I shmooze a local bookshop and have a pistachio ice cream.

We catch the 5.20 hydrojet back to Sorrento and I make my last research stop: the Hotel Bellevue Syrene. This four-star hotel perched on Sorrento's cliff has Roman reproduction rooms and is built on the foundations of a Roman villa, like that of Pollius Felix. I can't see the foundations, of course, but a handsome receptionist called Mehdi kindly agrees to take us down to show us the Roman rooms. These are reserved for wedding parties and there is one about to arrive any minute.

The Roman rooms of the Bellevue Syrene are superb. Replica frescoes and mosaics were done at the beginning of the 20th century. The setting and landscaping is magnificent, too. If they ever make a Hollywood blockbuster of one of the Roman Mysteries and have a wrap-party (or whatever they call it) afterwards, then this is the place to come!

Richard and I have drinks on the terrace with its Roman-like columns and arbour, gazing out over the blue Gulf of Sorrento in the cool of the evening. Our cocktails cost as a much as dinner but it's worth it for this moment of sybaritic luxury. After all, tomorrow it's back to London!

P.S. The Sirens of Surrentum ended up being my fave book of the series, along with The Pirates of Pompeii and The Man from Pomegranate Street. All three are very romantic, but The Sirens of Surrentum is the most 'grown-up'!

Baths of Baia

The Sirens of Surrentum

It is mid-summer of 2005. I am on the Bay of Naples to research my most romantic Roman Mystery, The Sirens of Surrentum. It has taken me three days to find an internet cafe here in Campania and it's not even an internet cafe, just a video/DVD shop with a computer by one wall. Plus it's down in Sorrento, not in the hill village where we're staying. Our package tour has put us in a little village 'only seven kilometres' from Sorrento. Problem is it takes ages to get the bus down to Sorrento. That's what happens when you book cheap last minute holidays sight unseen. Anyway, the Hotel Delle Palma in Sant'Agata is a very charming three star hotel with pines, palms, magnolia and plane trees. Our room has a balcony overlooking the pool and a bit of the gulf and Capri. (Later on I discover there IS an internet café, only a hundred metres from the hotel!)

Saturday is our day to explore Baia. It is quite a journey. We catch the little SITA bus from Sant'Agata at 7.10, the circumvesuviana train at 7.40, the metro from Naples-Garibaldi at 9.00, chang trains at Napoli Campi Flegrei to catch the train to Pozzuoli at 9.30 and finally arrive at the Archeobus stop at 10.00am.

pool at the Hotel Della Palma in Sant'Agata near Sorrento

There is so much I want to see here: the site of ancient Baiae (modern Baia), ancient Cumae, where the Sybil lived; Misenum, from where Pliny first saw the volcano erupting; Pozzuoli, with its Flavian amphitheatre and underground Roman city... But my next book is mainly set in Baia so we go there first. The Archeobus is a little bus that makes a circuit of all the major sites to the west of Naples, those around the Campi Flegrei (burning fields), so called because of all the volcanic activity.

We have been standing at the busstop about 10 minutes a gentleman with a cane politely informs us that "the archeobus is finished". Apparently they have stopped running it.

The man tells us to get a little bus which they call pullman. He will show us. Presently the little SEPSA bus comes and we go with the gentleman as far as Lago Lucrino. The Lucrine Lake was the site of Agrippina's house. Agrippina was the mother of Nero and one spring evening in AD 65 he decided to have her murdered. After his botched plan to drown her in a collapsing boat (she swam to shore), some fishermen picked her up and brought her here, where Nero's hitmen finished the job with their swords. The Lake – which was once famous through the Empire for its oysters – is now little more than a stagnant pool, but there is a restaurant on the shore called La Nimphea which overlooks the lake and puts me in mind of Agrippina's Villa.

It is after 11.00am and boiling hot. We haven't had anything to eat, so we dive into a shady cafe for peanuts, espresso and water. Suitably refreshed, we ask the waiter when the trains to Baia run. "Every ten minutes" he assures us in Italian. We go to the little station across the road but when we ask about il prossimo treno per Baia the handful of travellers just shrug.

so-called Temple of Diana at Baia

So we stand in the beating sun to catch another pullman. Mercifully it comes after five or ten minutes and we pile on.

It is only luck that we get out at the right place; the busdriver has no clue where the ancient baths are. But we spot the brown sign with its white letters. A short but exhausting climb up the hill brings us to the site entrance.

These ruins on the hill overlooking the pretty blue bay are of opulent baths. There were many baths complexes here in Baia. The so-called Temple of Diana, a dramatic half dome, that we passed on the way up are baths. So is the Temple of Venus.

From up here we can clearly see the train station of Baia. Its tracks are rusted and wildflowers grow profusely around it. 'Every ten minutes', indeed! This station hasn't been used in at least five years...

The site is hot and deserted. We explore the terrace of an opulent villa and the baths surrounding it. We see the odd black and white mosaic, a headless marble statue in a niche, a patch of frescoed wall with Pompeian red and the even more expensive Egyptian blue. Much of the site is roped off and it is obviously well-off the beaten track. I am hoping we will be able to see the so-called (again) Temple of Mercury.

The Temple of Mercury was a huge dome, as big as the Pantheon and pre-dating it, built in the time of Augustus. It was either the apodyterium or frigidarium of this bath complex. I tend to think the latter as it is the outstanding feature of the baths and this is where people would mainly congregate. I have seen pictures and know it will be amazing. But will we have access? Poor Richard is pouring with sweat, even though he's wearing his straw hat, and he follow me without complaint, occasionally stopping to mop his brow with a handtowel borrowed from the hotel.

I lead him past ruined porticoes and down scrubby paths fringed with fennel, quince, chamomile, dill, sage and other herbs. At last we arrive and it seems to be open! Next to the rectangular entrance is a vault which was once one of the rooms of the baths. And here is something I have never seen in my life; a fig tree growing UPSIDE DOWN from the roof of the vault. It is green and healthy and bearing a good crop of figs. What a marvel!

Then we enter the rectangular room and go through a narrow passage and emerge into another world.

Caroline in the so-called Temple of Mercury

Here is a great dome with a circular open skylight at the top and four rectangular openings on its sides. From somewhere a breeze is funneled through the openings and carresses us with delicious coolness. The high dome amplifies our whispered exclamations and makes them echo. But the most amazing thing is the sunlight which pours almost straight down through the skylight onto four feet of green water, caused by bradyseism or flooding. The surface of the water, barely rippled by the breeze, throws a huge trembling golden disc back up onto the inner surface of the dome.

Then we see the fish swimming in the murky water: huge gold and white carp, languidly drifting through the dark water and avoiding the sunlit patches. A flutter of wings makes us look up to see a dove fluttering through one of the openings. The breeze blows, the water plops, I want to stay in this magical place forever.

[The 17 books in the Roman Mysteries series are perfect for children aged 9+, especially those studying Romans, Greeks or Egyptians as a topic in Key Stage 2. Season One of the TV series is available in Europe and the UK on iTunes.]