So, for Friday, our main mission was to do the Bourbon Tunnel Tour.
The tunnels were commissioned by King Ferdinand II in 1853 to connect the royal palace with the troops stationed near the harbour.
With the the fall of the Bourbon empire, it was never completed, but the main tunnel connects with a number of other underground tunnels and the network of cisterns that were the water supply for the city.
During the Second World War, the tunnels and cisterns (filled in) were used as bomb shelters and subsequently they were used as impound areas by the police and as illegal dumps. They were basically forgotten until around 2007 when they were "discovered" and have since been restored. The entrance (one anyway) is through the Morelli Car Park. It was a really interesting tour, with lots of samples of the abandoned vehicles and WWII era artifacts.
After the tour, we went for a wander along the waterfront and checked out the views from the Castel dell'Ovo.
Later, we had a great dinner at Taverna dell'Arte, just down the street from us.
2025-02-10