Things to Do in Naples with Kids

Naples is a lively, colorful city full of contrasts that will surprise both adults and children. With castles overlooking the sea, ancient streets, interactive museums, underground tunnels, and truly unforgettable pizza, there are countless experiences to enjoy as a family.
When visiting with children, it’s best to take your time, alternating between museums and monuments and leisurely walks, stops in the squares, and more relaxed moments. In this guide, we’ve compiled the most interesting things to see and do in Naples with children and teens, along with some practical tips to help you explore the city with greater ease.

Visiting Naples’ Historic Center with Children

The historic center is the most authentic heart of Naples: a vast tapestry of neighborhoods, alleys, squares, churches, and palaces, each with its own unique atmosphere. To explore it with children, it’s best to choose just a few stops and take your time, allowing yourself to observe the shops, murals, laundry hanging out to dry, and the many scenes of daily life.

Spaccanapoli and the Decumani

The ideal starting point is Spaccanapoli, the long thoroughfare that runs through the historic center and, when viewed from above, seems to clearly divide the city in two.
Strolling between Piazza del Gesù and Via San Biagio dei Librai, you’ll come across the Monumental Complex of Santa Chiara, Piazza San Domenico Maggiore, historic palaces, churches, and small shops. A little further on, you’ll reach Via dei Tribunali, the Duomo, and the other streets of the Decumani, where history and daily life constantly intertwine.

San Gregorio Armeno and the Street of Nativity Scenes

Between Spaccanapoli and Via dei Tribunali lies San Gregorio Armeno, known worldwide as the street of nativity scenes. Its shops display shepherds, figurines, and nativity scenes crafted by Neapolitan artisans all year round.
Alongside the traditional Nativity figures, you’ll often find soccer players, singers, actors, and current celebrities. Children will have fun recognizing famous faces—from Maradona to Pino Daniele—and examining the small details in the shops.

During the Christmas season, the atmosphere is particularly enchanting, but the street also gets very crowded. If you’re traveling with young children, it’s best to visit in the morning or on less crowded days.

Underground Naples: A Journey Beneath the Historic Center

Just a short walk from San Gregorio Armeno, in Piazza San Gaetano, is the entrance to Underground Naples. The tour takes you into the hidden heart of the city, along a route that traces some 2,400 years of history.
After descending 136 low, easy-to-climb steps, you’ll reach tunnels and large caverns carved into the tuff at a depth of about 40 meters. Originally used as cisterns for the ancient Greco-Roman aqueduct, these spaces were converted into air-raid shelters during World War II. Along the route, you’ll also encounter the War Museum, the Underground Gardens, and the remains of the Greco-Roman Theater.

The tour lasts about an hour and takes place almost entirely in spacious, well-lit areas. Only a short, narrow tunnel, lit by candlelight, leads to a Roman cistern still filled with water: this section is optional, and those who prefer can wait for the group outside.
A free app is also available with an audio guide for children in Italian and English , designed to tell the story of the underground in a simple and engaging way.

Comfortable shoes are recommended for the tour, and even in summer, a light sweatshirt is advised. The tour is also suitable for young children, but it is not accessible with a stroller, which can be left at the entrance.
Here you can book online tickets for Napoli Sotterranea.

The Spanish Quarter and the Maradona Murals

From the historic center, crossing Via Toledo, you reach the Spanish Quarter, a labyrinth of narrow alleys, stairways, small shops, and homes with laundry hanging between one balcony and another.

In recent years, the area has also become a vast open-air gallery of street art. On the walls, you’ll find works dedicated to the city’s history and its most beloved figures, but the undisputed star is Diego Armando Maradona.

Visiting Downtown Naples with Strollers and Young Children

Naples’ historic center is charming, but it can be tiring with very young children. Some streets are crowded and not always clean, while scooters and mopeds may pass through the alleys even in areas that appear to be pedestrian-only. It’s therefore important to keep children close and always pay attention.

The uneven pavement, narrow sidewalks, and numerous stairways also make many areas difficult to navigate with a stroller. A lightweight model can be used, but for infants and very young children, a baby carrier may be more practical.

Naples, the Capital: Among Squares and Castles

Naples isn’t just a city of narrow alleys and laundry hanging out to dry. For centuries, it was a very wealthy and important capital, and its regal past is still clearly visible in the grand palaces, theaters, monumental squares, and castles that dominate the city

To make it more engaging for children, the walk can be turned into a game thanks to an interactive treasure hunt in Naples’ historic center.
By following clues and solving riddles, the whole family can explore the city with greater curiosity and notice details that might go unnoticed during a typical visit.

Piazza del Plebiscito

The heart of historic Naples is Piazza del Plebiscito, a large square flanked by the Royal Palace and the Basilica of San Francesco di Paola, recognizable by its wide colonnade.
With children, it’s fun to cross the square and try the traditional game of walking across it with your eyes closed, starting from the Royal Palace and trying to pass between the two equestrian statues. The slope of the square makes the task much more difficult than it seems.

A short distance away are the San Carlo Theater—one of the world’s oldest opera houses still in operation—and the Umberto I Gallery, with its large glass-and-iron dome and ornate floor. Strolling through this area, you’ll discover Naples’ most elegant side, quite different from that of the historic center.

Beneath the neighborhood lies the Galleria Borbonica, commissioned in 1853 by Ferdinand II of Bourbon as a military passageway and a potential escape route for the royal family. Later, the spaces were used as a shelter during World War II and as a storage facility.

Click here for tickets for the Galleria Borbonica

Castel Nuovo, the Maschio Angioino

Near Piazza Municipio stands Castel Nuovo, best known as the Maschio Angioino. With its large crenellated towers and marble triumphal arch, it looks just like the castle children imagine in fairy tales.
Built at the end of the 13th century at the behest of the Angevins and later transformed by the Aragonese, the castle served for centuries as one of the city’s main royal residences. Inside, visitors can explore the courtyard, the Palatine Chapel, the Hall of the Barons, and the exhibits of the Civic Museum.

Castel dell’Ovo and the Borgo Marinari

The Castel dell’Ovo stands on the ancient islet of Megaride and is one of the most recognizable landmarks along Naples’s waterfront. Its name is linked to the legend that the poet Virgil hid a magical egg in the castle’s foundations: as long as the egg remained intact, the city would also be protected.
The castle is currently closed to the public for renovations, but it’s still worth visiting Borgo Marinari, strolling past the boats, and admiring the fortress from the sea. The area is pedestrian-only, flat, and easier to navigate with a stroller than the narrow alleys of the historic center.

Castel Sant’Elmo and the View of Naples

To admire Naples from above, you need to head up to the Vomero, where you’ll find Castel Sant’Elmo, a large fortress with a distinctive star-shaped layout.
The climb can become part of the experience by taking one of the funiculars that connect the city center to the Vomero. From the castle, a spectacular view opens up over the historic center, Spaccanapoli, the port, Mount Vesuvius, and the Gulf of Naples.
Children can walk along the wide ramparts and observe the city from ever-changing perspectives. The complex also houses the Museo Novecento a Napoli, dedicated to 20th-century art. However, it’s important to keep younger children close by in the viewing areas and along the walkways.

Città della Scienza in Naples

For budding young scientists, Naples offers museums and experiences that turn discovery into a game.
The Città della Scienza in Naples is home to Italy’s first interactive science museum, which opened in 2001 with the goal of bringing adults and children closer to science through hands-on experimentation.

The highlight of the visit is Corporea, Europe’s first interactive museum entirely dedicated to the human body, health, and biomedical sciences. Through exhibits, games, and experiments, children and teens can discover how the brain, heart, muscles, the five senses, and other systems of our body work.
The tour also includes Insects & Co. – The Living Lab, where you can observe insects and small animals up close, and the large Planetarium, which takes the whole family on an immersive journey through stars, planets, and galaxies.

Here you can purchase tickets for the City of Science in Naples

The Anton Dohrn Zoological Station

The Anton Dohrn Zoological Station, founded in 1872, is one of the most important research institutions dedicated to marine biology and marine ecology.
For children who love nature, a visit to these three locations—managed directly by the Dohrn Station—is truly a must.

The Naples Aquarium

The Naples Aquarium is dedicated to showcasing the diverse marine life of the Gulf of Naples and its ecosystem. These fish, in fact, come from the waters off the Campania region.
In the 26 tanks on display to the public, you and your children can admire many aquatic environments and discover the biodiversity of marine life.
The museum is Italy’s first public aquarium, and perhaps this is also part of its secret charm: it has a history spanning nearly 140 years.

Click here for tickets:The Naples Public Aquarium

The Darwin–Dohrn Museum

Next to the aquarium, within the Villa Comunale, the Darwin–Dohrn Museum , which tells the story of evolution—from the origin of life to the present day—in an interactive and engaging way.
Life originated in the sea, and the DaDoM, following in the tradition of the Zoological Station, focuses on the marine environment—not least because the oceans cover 71% of the planet’s surface and their volume accounts for more than 90% of the space habitable by life.

Click here for tickets :Darwin Museum – Dohrn

Turtle Point in Portici

Have you ever seen sea turtles up close? Would you like to name the newly arrived turtles and follow their lives after the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station Research Center has cared for them and released them back into the sea?
Located on the coast of Portici is Turtle Point, an important sea turtle rehabilitation center.
The center is open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays.
Here, you’ll learn about sea turtles and the marine environment.

Click here for tickets:Turtle Point in Portici

Naples Zoo

The Naples Zoo isn’t just a park where you can see lots of animals—it’s also a place to learn about a piece of the history of the city of Naples.
Founded in 1949, the Naples Zoo is the second zoo to open in Italy after the Rome Zoo.
There are countless species of animals in the park: mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians.
The facility is divided into several themed areas: the tiger area, the elephant area, the educational farm, the crocodile area, the African tortoise area, the aviary, the reptile house, and the insect house. In addition, the savanna area has recently been added, where you can find wildebeests, cranes, zebras, antelopes, hippos, and giraffes. Don’t forget the kangaroos, lemurs, seals, rubins, bears, and many other animals.
But in addition to all this, hand in hand with your children, you can also visit the farm animals, such as goats and chickens, which are located in an enclosure at the zoo’s entrance. These animals are very gentle and tame, so you can pet them without any hesitation.

The Naples Zoo

The Capodimonte Astronomical Observatory

The Capodimonte Astronomical Observatory was inaugurated in 1819 by Ferdinand I of Bourbon. In fact, if you decide to visit it, you can read the following words engraved on the building’s facade: “Ferdinand I / Astronomical Advancement / Mdcccxix.”
Today, 200 years later, the Capodimonte Astronomical Observatory can be considered one of the most active and prestigious international institutions in the world.
It’s always a thrill to visit it, because of its panoramic location. In fact, it is located on Capodimonte Hill.
Currently, the Observatory is increasingly opening its doors to residents and tourists, engaging the public with interesting and entertaining initiatives, such as spectacular visits to the movie club and the planetarium.
In addition, the City of Naples has organized an exciting activity for children (and parents) at this magical place. Here, your family can discover the secrets of space and take a journey through planets, comets, galaxies, and stars. Children can stay with you for the entire duration of the visit.

Top Tips You Won’t Want to Miss in Naples

To make the most of your vacation in Naples, be sure to try Neapolitan pizza—especially the classic Margherita—which you can enjoy at “Pizzeria Sorbillo” and at “Pizzeria da Michele,” the oldest pizzeria in Naples . Even if you’ve eaten a thousand pizzas in your life, you’ll discover that pizza in Naples really is something else!
As for Neapolitan desserts, the famous Babà and the legendary curly sfogliatelle—which are made so well only in Naples—are absolute must-tries.

To bid farewell to this enchanting city, on your last day take the whole family to Via Caracciolo, Mergellina—Naples’ waterfront promenade—which has finally become a pedestrian zone, so you can rent bikes and scooters for the kids and breathe in the fresh air of the enchanting Neapolitan sea.

The real Neapolitan pizza