Getting to Pompeii from Naples, Rome and Sorrento

Pompeii is easy to reach and easy to get wrong, because two railway stations serve the town under near-identical names and only one of them puts you at the main gate. Read the first section and the rest of this is straightforward. The naples italy pompeii tours listed here all handle the journey for you.

Pompei Villa dei Misteri, not Pompei

Three stations serve the town, and they are not interchangeable:

• Pompei Villa dei Misteri — Circumvesuviana, Naples–Sorrento line. Two minutes' walk from Porta Marina and Piazza Esedra. This is the one you want.
• Pompei Santuario — Circumvesuviana, Naples–Poggiomarino line. Serves the modern town and the Piazza Anfiteatro entrance at the far end of the site.
• Pompei — Trenitalia, Naples–Salerno line. Also the modern town; Pompei Link, a combined train-and-bus ticket, connects it to the park in about fifteen minutes.

The fix is simple: put Pompei Villa dei Misteri into the journey planner, not Pompei, and check the line as well as the name. If you do end up at the wrong end of town, walk — it is about twenty-five minutes between the two entrances outside the walls, and both are real gates you can go in through.

From Naples (about 35 minutes)

Naples is the cheapest base of the four and the easiest day trip. It is also the one where the naples italy pompeii tours on this list matter least — the journey is simple enough to do alone, so what you are buying is the guide rather than the logistics.

From Sorrento (about 30 minutes)

Sorrento is where the half-day version of Pompeii works best, and the express tour by train folds the round-trip ticket, the entry and the guide into one fare. Expect to stand: the Circumvesuviana is a commuter line and it fills, so a seat in either direction is not guaranteed.

From Rome (about 2 hours 30 by train)

By rail it is a high-speed service from Roma Termini to Napoli Centrale in a little under an hour and a half, then the Circumvesuviana from the level below. Allow two and a half hours each way with the change, and buy the long-distance leg in advance.

The alternative is a day trip that handles all of it. A coach leaves central Rome early, runs south on the A1 with a comfort stop, gives you two hours in the excavations with a licensed guide and the ticket already bought, and has you back in the evening. From Rome: Pompeii Day Trip with Optional Vesuvius and Lunch does exactly that from From $68, and the minivan version caps at fourteen instead of a full coach.

From the Amalfi Coast and Positano

There is no railway on the Amalfi Coast. From Positano or Amalfi you either take the SITA bus over the pass to Sorrento and pick up the Circumvesuviana there, or you book a transfer. The van tour from Positano runs about seventy-five minutes each way along the coast road, which is the road itself as much as the transfer.

Driving it yourself in season is a poor trade: the coast road is single-file in places, the parking at Pompeii is private and variable, and you will spend the time you saved looking for a space.

Driving, and the Pompei Scavi exit

Leave the A3 Naples–Salerno motorway at Pompei Scavi for Porta Marina and Piazza Esedra. Private car parks sit around both that entrance and Piazza Anfiteatro. They are commercial operations rather than part of the park, so prices vary and no guided fare covers them.

By bus, SITA runs from Naples and Salerno, and BUSITALIA Campania route 4 and the route 50 motorway express both come up from Salerno.

Which gate each route reaches

Sources

Entrances, railway lines, station names, the Pompei Link service, the bus routes and the motorway exit are published by the Archaeological Park of Pompeii. Prices and hours change — check before you travel.