Placing one foot onto the step, I glanced back at my guide as she gave me an encouraging smile. “It’s alright,” she said, switching the flashlight on. “I’ll be down there with you every step of the way.” Then, putting all my trust in Francesca, the woman I had known for mere minutes, I walked into the gaping hole of the dusty open ground and faded into the darkness.
I was carefully descending more than 80 steps inside the Galleria Borbonica in Naples, Italy. The 50-mile long underground bunker was used to house thousands of poverty-stricken Italian men and women during World War II, when the port of Napoli suffered more than 200 air strikes as Nazi Germany put up heavy resistance in the city. The shelter, which is located 40 feet below ground and was carved out of the soft rock and stone the region had been built upon, was originally a huge underground cistern filled with an array of pipes that delivered water to the entire city of Naples.
When the conflict broke out between Italy and Germany, it became a bunker where citizens would remain hidden when an attack was imminent, often for days and sometimes weeks. Some who lost their homes in the war went on to live in the bunker permanently.
The staff that provides tours and repairs to the tunnel sometimes refuses to go into the bunker alone because of the darkness and legends that it was haunted. Some will not even set foot on the grand stone steps I was now descending without a group of at least eight. Thankfully, I had Francesca, who had been giving tours in the bunker for years.
‘There are many rumors the tunnel is haunted and to be honest, I would expect it to be,” she said. “Some people who took shelter from the bombing died in the tunnel because of their wounds. Getting a doctor to treat people in the tunnel depended entirely on whether there was a doctor in the tunnel at the time.’
Francesca explained that an array of eerie happenings have taken place in the tunnel, both before her time and during, such as shadows lurking beneath the light, even when no one had signed Barbonica’s all-important register to declare they were down below. During one particularly frightening experience, she said the voice of a crying child could be heard.
‘We thought about giving the spirit a name,’ Francesca said. “But none of us could decide on whether it was a girl or boy’s voice.”
The voice was heard a number of times, not only by tour guides but also small groups, which is why many of Francesca’s colleagues will only enter with a minimum number of tourists. I was keen to experience it for myself.
At the bottom of the steps, the atmosphere became thick and heavy, even more so as I ventured deeper and deeper into the cave’s dank, dark labyrinth. As the path narrowed and the ceilings constricted, a yellowish light at the end of the tunnel suddenly opened up to reveal a huge entranceway, which Francesca informed me was where most of the families would gather. “Up to a thousand families would sit together here and wait for the bombing to stop,” she said. “The children would run around and play with whatever they could find while their parents would make up beds and cook and talk to the other mothers and fathers.”
She shone her torch on the dimly-lit wall at the back of the cave. On it was the scrawling ‘Noi Vivi!’ “It means ‘We’re alive!’,” she said. We rounded a corner that revealed a well surrounded by rusted old Vespas – a popular sight in bustling Napoli – and the shells of worn cars.
Naples’ water system originated during the time of Greek colonization and involved aqueducts that helped re-route springs to subterranean chambers so Italians could get water from different wells. Many of the wells ran from Galleria Borbonica. Among the vast number of citizens seeking shelter, there were many plumbers, a common trade in the city. Then there were the elite Italians, who were lucky enough to have direct access to the water running through the underground tunnel in the form of small wells located inside their homes.
During days that Naples was not under threat, the plumbers were known to climb into the large pipes and up through the wells. “Sometimes jewelry belonging to the wives would go missing, but then it would return a few days afterward,” said Francesca. “And so the legend of the house ghost Munaciello was created.”
The tale changed over the years and the spirit became less eerie and more prosperous. Some even claimed the lucky spirit predicted lottery numbers–until the wives found out the plumbers were responsible for entering their homes and moving their things. Still, some agreed to keep the plumbers’ secret–for something in return. “Many Neapolitan wives spoke of their thanks that Munaciello had blessed them with the luck of becoming pregnant,” Francesca elaborated with a wink.
And that marked the end of the tour, a part of my trip to Naples I will never forget. As the elevator took me back up to the frantic city above, a part of me wanted to share my wonderful experience of the bunker below. Yet like most secrets, I reasoned that some are better left unsaid.
