TRAVEL: How we managed a Day Trip to Pompeii and Herculaneum from Rome

I took my teenage daughter to Rome in August 2014, and one of the things she most wanted to do, after visiting The Colosseum and The Vatican, was to go to Pompeii and Herculaneum.  I was pretty sure there'd be trips to Pompeii available from Rome, but was doubtful they would include Herculaneum.  I promised to look into it, and did some internet research before we set off.

This blog from 2010 was a great help. How to Visit Pompeii and Herculaneum in One Day Without a Tour by Jessica. It helped me to navigate Napoli Centrale Railway Station. Now all I had to do was fit it in with a trip from Rome first.  It went like this:

As you leave Roma Termini, you can see the vast
ruins of the aquaduct that supplied the city.

The evening before, I studied the railway times from Roma Termini (the main railway station in Rome).  Napoli is written in red, as a principal station, which helped.  I decided to pay more (double!) for a ticket on the IC (inter-city) fast train from Rome, on which everyone has a designated seat. To do this, just go to the automatic ticket points and select the national flag on the screen that represents your language. There are card, note and coin slots and it's well guided.  I chose a slow train for the return journey, as our hotel was quite close to the station, also to save money, and because you can catch any AR train before midnight (bear in mind that you can't get on an IC train with an AR-regular train ticket). We set off at around 7am as the fast train still takes two hours.  Check the ultimate destination of the train; Napoli Centrale is not a terminus, and they often go through to Sorrento. This will help you to find the right train along Roma's 20 platforms!

Once at Napoli Centrali you need to switch to the Circumvesuviana line (a local service). To do this, you go down two levels to the Circumvesuviana station "Napoli Garibaldi" where you can buy return tickets to Pompei Scavi station (Scavi means excavations).  It can take an hour to get to Pompeii. Now, Herculaneum is on the same line, at an earlier stop.  We couldn't make ourselves understood when asking whether we could break the journey at Herculaneum, so we decided to do Pompeii first, then take the line back to Herculaneum (the stop for Herculaneum is called Ercolano, or Ercolano Scavi, depending which window you look out of). That way, if our ticket got swallowed at Ercolano, we could just buy another for the remainder of the journey back to Napoli. (This wasn't tested, as there were open, unmanned gates at the station where we didn't need to use our tickets.)

Traffic Calming and pedestrian
crossing all-in-one at Pompeii

We got off at Pompeii, and immediately saw a huge sign saying TICKET OFFICE.  It was not the main Pompeii ticket office, but one of those guided tour ones so we ignored it.  We found the site entrance and official ticket office a few yards down the hill, and joined the long queue (should've got up earlier; I noticed it was open from 08:30).  Tickets are €11 in 2014, or €20 for all 5 sites (I never knew about the other three!). Under-25s get a discount, so take some ID if this applies.  It is no cheaper at Herculaneum, so if you're sure you will be visiting there, get the €20 ticket.

Vesuvius overshadows the ruins

It takes literally hours to walk all around the site, and it's a good idea to be as well informed as possible when you do so (eg: audio-guide you can rent at the gate, the free map you get on entry - they do run out of English ones, but a map's a map - and researching it all beforehand).  There are plenty of water fountains where you can top up your drinking water, so hold on to your bottle. A picnic is a good idea, as all the food places are outside the site - most of them outside the exit (from which turn right and walk up the hill to return to the Circumvesuviana).  Leave yourself at least an hour for the smaller Herculaneum site, and another hour to get there, in case you're unlucky with train times; Remembering that you also have to get back to Napoli Centrale for your train back to Rome (you must be back in Rome the same day or your ticket becomes invalid).

Overhead info at main railway stations. Check whether 

it's for arrivals or departures, then it gives the name

of the other station, the scheduled time, minutes late, 

(where applicable) and platform number.

Herculaneum, from the approach path

When you get off the Circumvesuviana at Ercolano Scavi, you leave the station by a steep set of stairs that lead onto the streets of modern Ercolano. Just head downhill. The signs say the excavations are 500m away, but that's not strictly true. You get to the main gate by then, but there's another 500m before you reach the ticket office (however, the path looks over the site and you can get some superb photographs from above). The steep walls of the town on the seaward side used to be where the sea came up to - before the eruption of Vesuvius.

Just retrace your steps back up the hill after your visit (the steps are somewhat off to the right - I say this because I forgot!) to catch the Circumvesuviana in the same direction you were travelling when you got off, back to Napoli Garibaldi and the main Napoli Centrale station, where you catch your train back to Rome.  The AR trains are double-deckers, and we had no trouble finding a seat as we arrived well after the rush hour.  For this journey, I would have a good book, some music or a download to watch; especially if you're on the AR train and not the IC!

One more thing; you don't have time to walk up Vesuvius on this schedule.

Enjoy your trip!

You can see the island of Capri from the main

line and the Circumvesuviana.