Quick Tips for Pompeii, Italy

What a sight! A city that was devoured in ashes in AD 79 by Mount Vesuvius. The citizens of Pompeii had no idea they were living near a dormant volcano until Mount Vesuvius decided to awaken. It is incredible to see a city in such great condition after such a horrific incident. If you love history, then you will be very excited to experience Pompeii first hand. Below are some tips to help you better enjoy Pompeii.

SET ASIDE AN ENTIRE DAY TO DISCOVER POMPEII

We were initially only planning on staying there a couple hours, which later turned into at least 5-6 hrs in Pompeii. This city is huge and even if you dedicate an entire day to it, you probably still won’t be able to finish seeing it all.

TAKE THE TRAIN

Since we based ourselves in Piano di Sorrento, we were able to easily make a day trip to Pompeii. We jumped on the Circumvesuviana local train from Piano di Sorrento Train Station and took it towards Pompeii Scavi - Villa Dei Misteri station. We got off on Pompeii Scavi and walked less than 5 minutes to the main entrance of the ruins (Please be aware that this train can get full as it is a very popular route that goes from Sorrento to Naples). Tickets on this train are between €2-3 each way per person.

GET AN AUDIO TOUR OR WALKING TOUR

There are audio tours and walking tours available for Pompeii. As soon as you walk into the Pompeii area, you will be approached by people trying to get you to sign up for a walking tour. This is something we highly recommend since Pompeii is huge and can get very confusing. Since we were on a budget we decided to opt for Rick Steve’s audio tour. This audio tour lasts about 40 minutes and it comes with a map you can download. It took us longer because we stopped for pictures throughout the tour. We downloaded the audio tour to our phones and used our headsets for easy listening. This audio tour gives you the major highlights of Pompeii. We loved this audio guide, because it allowed us to discover Pompeii at our pace and best of all it was FREE! With this audio guide you can make your tour as long or short as you want.

COMFORTABLE SHOES, SPF, AND PLENTY OF WATER

Pompeii is big! You will be doing a lot of walking and on hot sunny days there is little to no shade. Make sure you pack plenty of SPF and water. There is a cafeteria inside Pompeii in case you need to purchase food or drinks. To save us money, we packed a small backpack with water and snacks. Bring comfortable walking shoes, the streets are cobbled streets so bringing flimsy flip flops is not recommended since you will have trouble walking.

We enjoyed Pompeii much more because we had seen the movie “Pompeii”, highly recommend you watch it before going!