Good morning children! Where are you? Oh! I forgot to put my glasses on! Here you are! My name is Giù Talpina and I will guide you on this journey into the fantastic world below. You must know that here in Naples there are many magical places and magic can transform everything, men, things, animals, cities. Before entering, let's look up at the blue sky and photograph it with the camera we have in our brains.

Let's talk a little about this strange world: we are 30 m deep. What happened down here, in a distant time? Here we used to dug every day because we needed to build a city, which one? But Naples, or rather Neapolis which actually means "New City". These are tuff quarries, a material that the Greek colonists, coming from Cuma, used to build houses, temples and theaters. We are in the fourth century, BC. and the Greeks, great navigators, had discovered the coasts of southern Italy. They stopped here in Campania because the gulf would welcome and protect their ships, because the land was fertile and because the landscape was wonderful. The bricklayers descended into the quarries and also had to erect cisterns to collect the water which probably came from the Sebeto river which now no longer exists. Neapolis was built as the most important Greek city, Athens, following the instructions of Greek architects. There were longitudinal streets and other transversal ones that intersected. Public…

Let's go a little further and here we are at the second cistern. Do you believe in magic? So cover your eyes and start the time machine to go far into the fourth century. Then imagine yourself invisible. Now, with your eyes open, go and choose a place here next to me. If you look carefully, you will see a group of workers down there: their faces and bodies are dusty and they seem a little tired, they have brought a lot of stuff to the surface. But their work is not finished. In fact, they will have to start digging the canals in which the water will flow. Because this city, Neapolis, has grown, there are many people who live here and they need water; therefore, the Greeks gradually began to create canalizations for the water to make it flow into the wells. My ancestors also helped dig and were very good, very quick at their work. When the ancient Romans,who were formidable engineers, arrived, they decided to transform the tuff quarries into an immense aqueduct and therefore built other…

Here we are at the third cistern, look carefully: above, perhaps, if we are lucky, we will see Tide the smiling arachnid descend. He will show us more secrets of this place.

Now I'll accompany you to observe the fourth tank, do you see those pieces of wood stuck there on the wall of the tank? To detach the pieces of tuff more easily, the Greek workers placed these objects, which are called cugnoli, in the cracks of the tuff, wet them and waited for the water, penetrating the wood, to expand it, so it became easier to detach the block of tuff with chisel and hammer. Very clever! Now we salute and leave you in good company.

Hey guys, we're here! I speak to you on behalf of all my companions. We are the Friendly Ants and this is Diana Partigiana, the butterfly journalist. We have reached the fifth cistern. Now look around. This place was first used for tuff, then it became an aqueduct. For many years it was abandoned because the water was not very clean and people got sick by drinking it. When the Second World War broke out, it was transformed into a refuge where people used to run every time the siren announced a new bombing. Sometimes we spent days and nights down here, we ate what little we could find, the children played hide and seek among the cisterns and my great, great, great grandparents enjoyed listening to their voices and protecting their dreams. Instead, we friendly ants were always ready to collect the few crumbs and give men our example of resistance.

Now, I am a journalist responsible for telling everything about nature and I will accompany you to the space of the sixth cistern, where you will find many plants. Here they are and here's who will tell you about them: the peasant Lombrichina. Unfortunately she always has her mouth full and can't speak, so I will continue and speak, imitating her voice: "Good morning guys, sorry, my mouth is still full, you know we earthworms eat everything! I can digest anything. Indeed, if you have something ugly and bad, throw it to me, I will catch it and eat it, so you will return to being beautiful and happy. These plants you see here are the result of a fantastic experiment, they grow without sunlight. They are truly extraordinary. Now I'm leaving you, I'm going back to being a farmer, you follow Miss Lizard." Bye, Bye from the Partisan Butterfly!

Here I am, I'm Italian, even though I have an English surname; it's actually my nickname. Get ready for an adventurous journey, we will enter a kind of very narrow tunnel. You know that many adults are afraid in here, but the children are not. Generally they have fun and then I'm here to guide you. We walk carefully because there is little light. Think how many beautiful stories you can invent after having  this experience. For a moment imagine that you are a superhero and your superpowers down here have increased. Now you are almost ready for our mission. Go.

Good morning! I'm Mr. Bat, I fly, but I'm not a bird! In this room the nuns stored the wine they produced. Once upon a time this place was surrounded by greenery and vines were cultivated, then the grapes were harvested,the wine was made and was kept here in the cool. And I, or rather my ancestors, made sure that no strangers entered. Sometimes it happened that someone tried to take away some bottles. But our family of bats always managed to scare them away.

If we look around we can see that we are in the historic center of Naples, surrounded by old buildings, none of us would think that there could be a theater down here! But not just any theater, NERONE’S THEATER! The emperor was very fond of the beautiful Neapolis and, when he came to our city, he often acted in this theater. Now we will only see the remains because, when the theater was abandoned, it was not demolished: in fact the Romans did not destroy what they had built, but built on top of old and disused buildings. So palaces were erected on the theater, but under them there are still the ruins of this huge 5,000-seat theater. Imagine that in this area of ​​Naples there was a space dedicated to culture: not only Nero’s theater, but also another covered structure, where music was listened to. Maybe it was some kind of disco! Who knows!

Here, there was a basement, that is, an apartment at street level, look, moving the bed. What happens: there is a secret trap door that takes us to Nero’s personal dressing rooms, where the emperor wore his costumes suitable for his shows. Do any of you have a trap door in your home? Now we can see the remains of the upper ring of the bleachers, just like the ones that are also there in stadiums. Just think that one day Nero was singing and acting and didn’t realize that a strong earthquake was shaking everything! The emperor, who was not very good either as an actor or a singer, was convinced that it was the intense enthusiasm of the public that made everything jump. A little presumptuous!