Naples (Pompeii/Herculaneum): Just Got Back

Naples, Italy

Naples, a city in southern Italy, is another port with too much to offer. Among your tour choices here:

• Explore the city of Naples: Highlights include Duomo di San Gennaro, the city's cathedral, which is filled with frescoes; the Royal Palace; Castel Nuovo, a 13th-century castle; the spectacular Piazza del Plebiscito; Maschio Angioino castle, surrounded by deep moats; Galleria Umberto I with its marble floors and world's largest glass-roofed arcade; and several museums including The National Archaeological Museum of Naples, displaying the most valuable heritage of works of art and archaeological artifacts in Italy (including some of the best finds from Pompeii).
  
• Visit the Island of Capri: One of the most picturesque and visited locations in the region. Also features the Blue Grotto, a dark cavern where the sea glows electric blue due sunlight passing through an underwater cave.
  
• Visit the Amalfi Coast: Explore the picturesque coastal towns of Sorrento and Positano.
  
• Peek inside Mt. Vesuvius: Journey to the top of this still-active volcano that destroyed nearby Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
  
• Explore Pompeii and/or Herculaneum: Explore the ancient ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii which are now vast archaeological sites.
  

The one place my wife specifically requested to visit on this entire trip was Pompeii, so we set our sights on seeing Pompeii and the lessor-known city of Herculaneum. Both are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. You can find tours and taxis to both ruined cities, or you can get there easily and inexpensively on your own. Pompeii is just a 30-to-40-minute train ride away, and Herculaneum is just 15 minutes away. Thankfully they can both be accessed from the same trains, but you still need to get to the train station from the port.

Both sites are free on the first Sunday of each month. Sure, we saved €13 pp at Pompeii and €11 pp at Herculaneum, but we had to deal with much heavier crowds than we otherwise would have. Since we only had one day in port we got off the ship as soon as we docked at 7:00 am and headed into town to catch a metro to the train station in hopes of reaching Pompeii when they opened at 8:30 am.

The Naples cruise port is located in the historic center, facing the medieval Castel Nuovo. You can walk from the ship, through the Maritime Station, across the parking lot, and past a snack bar and smack into a 7 lane road Via Ammiraglio Ferdinando Action. There will be a very obvious cross walk in front of you. Cross the street and walk up a ramp alongside the castle which will take you to its entrance.

If that's your destination, turn left and go in. Another 1.5 blocks up the road (Via San Carlo) is Galleria Umberto I, across from the San Carlo Theater (18th-century Opera House). Just one block past that is Piazza del Plebiscito with equestrian statues fronting Basilica Reale Pontificia San Francesco da Paola which features Greek-style columns lining the facade of this Pantheon-style church filled with sculpture and paintings. The Royal Palace is across the street (as you head back towards the port).

If you're heading for the metro, turn right instead and walk two blocks down Via Vittorio Emanuele III to Piazza Municipio, a small one block plaza. The metro station, designated by a big "M" can easily be seen. Buy your metro pass (€1,10) in the little shop on the right before heading downstairs to the station. Use your metro ticket to enter the turnstiles and go down several floors following signage for Garibaldi. Once at the correct station, take the first subway arriving from your right and traveling to your left, regardless of the "next train" time shown on the overhead monitor.

You'll arrive in 5 to 10 minutes. Follow the crowds or signage to the exit upstairs. You'll find yourself in a mall. Turn left and stay to the right. Ignore the first escalator you pass on your left and instead take the first escalator on your right. At the top turn right and follow the signs to Circumvesuviana (train). You will see ticket booths. Buy your one-way (€3,30) train ticket to "Pompeii Scavi". Go through the turnstiles, go down stairs and wait on the middle platform #3.

You are going to take the train toward "Sorrento". The trains run about every 30 minutes. The monitor will tell you when the next Sorrento train is scheduled to arrive. "Pompeii Scavi" is one of the stops. You'll arrive in about 30 minutes. Follow the crowds to the right, past a few shops and cafes, and a half-block later you'll be pleased to see that you've arrived at the entrance to Pompeii!

We arrived around 9:00 am. Since admission was free today due to being the first Sunday of the month, we bypassed the ticket booth and headed straight for the turnstiles. Wrong! We still needed a ticket. So we went back to the ticket window and secured our free tickets. We also picked up a free sitemap in the little room to the right of the ticket windows. This was the only place we saw maps all day. With tickets and maps in hand we went through the turnstiles and headed in.

Once a thriving Roman city, Pompeii was buried under tons of ash and pumice courtesy of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. The preserved site features excavated ruins of houses, buildings, and streets and you can freely roam. The nicer houses (with tile mosaics, infrequent statuary, courtyards, and columns) open and close on a rotating schedule. The site is massive and a lot of fun to explore. Photo opportunities abound.

We easily could have spent the whole day there, but we also wanted to see Herculaneum and get back to our ship before it left. On our way out, we noticed the entrance had closed to new visitors. The policy is to close by 12:30 pm, with expectations to reopen again after 2:30 pm, to regulate the flow of crowds on the free Sundays. (If they reach 15,000 people before 12:30 they will close earlier.)

We were sure glad we arrived early. Pompeii did seem to get crowded by 10:00 am. However, the further you get from the Forum (central square about 3 blocks in from the entrance), the less crowded it feels. Heading back to the train station, we bought our tickets (€2 each) to "Ercolano Scavi" (the stop for Herculaneum) and waited on platform #2, which requires that you take the stairs which directly across from the ticket office down and go under the tracks to the other side. Take the first train that comes as they'll all stop at Ercolano Scavi on the way to Naples / Napoli.

Carefully watch for your stop as signage isn't great and the stops are short. The train to Ercolano Scavi takes about 15-20 minutes depending upon the number of stops your particular train makes. We accidentally got off one stop too soon and had to use the GPS and offline maps on my phone to journey, mostly downhill, to Herculaneum's rear entrance. Assuming YOU get off at the right stop, walk directly downhill about 6 blocks on Via IV Novembre and you'll be at the rear entrance to Herculaneum. You can't miss it. If you're hungry, stop in at Bar Sandwich / Herculaneum Cafe across the street for an inexpensive meal. We shared a caprese sandwich with a wonderfully tasty fresh roll.

We secured our free tickets and map and walked into the site. Although Herculaneum is a significantly smaller city (about 1/4 the size, and only a fraction of that has been excavated), it's a much better preserved site than Pompeii. It's therefore easier to feel transported back in time. Herculaneum was smothered by the same volcanic event that destroyed Pompeii, albeit a later phase.

While Pompeii is all on "street level", Herculaneum is in a huge open pit. Pompeii was buried under just 12 feet of mostly volcanic debris, whereas Herculaneum was buried in 60 to 70 feet of mud and volcanic ash. Keeping in mind that Herculaneum used to be an oceanfront city, you instantly get a better idea of the magnitude of what they were buried under. Nearly 80% of Herculaneum is still unexplored, mostly due to being hidden underneath present day buildings.

The solemn visual representation of the death of each city's respective inhabitants is starkly different. Pompeii enthralls visitors with the bodies of victims that have been recreated through casting of plaster of Paris into soft cavities in the ash. These cavities were actually the outlines of the bodies that retained their shape despite decomposition --- though they still held the bones of the cadavers. The bones became incased when the plaster filled the soft ash. By contrast, visitors to Herculaneum can view boat houses with hundreds of skeletons waiting in the shade for a rescue that never arrived. So far, about 300 skeletons have been unearthed in 12 arched chambers.

Exiting Herculaneum, we headed for the Ercolano Scavi station, bought out ticket (€2,60 pp) and caught the first train back to Napoli, which turned out to be a train to Porta Nolana. (If you want to catch a train to the metro, essentially reversing the original route, be sure to catch a train to Garibaldi / Napoli Centrale instead). Upon exiting the station you can take a taxi or bus #151 back to the port; or turn left and walk. We walked three blocks, turned right, and walked 30 minutes (about 22 long blocks) along Via Nuova Marina back to the port. Walking wasn't hard but it wouldn't be my first choice next time.

Complete, very detailed review of entire cruise and precruise preparation:

http://www.lavasurfer.com/info/eastern-mediterranean.html

Great info and pictures, thanks for posting.

This is great information. Ty for posting.

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Ty, this is a super helpful post! Lots of useful info!

Thanks for posting.

If you had got off at the right stop for Herculaneum (Ercolano Scavi) you would probably have found vans on the station forecourt to take you down to the site - about €5 return. The return time is fixed - IIRC it gives you about 90 minutes on-site, OK for most but perhaps a bit short for some.

JB :)

Thanks JB. Didn't know about the transportation option. Folks with problems walking up and down hills will appreciate knowing that. The walk back up to Ercolano Scavi train station didn't bother us.

Thanks JB. Didn't know about the transportation option. Folks with problems walking up and down hills will appreciate knowing that. The walk back up to Ercolano Scavi train station didn't bother us.

It's really not a long walk. I've done it three times. It's got to amount to only about 5-6 blocks total from the train station to the site; albeit uphill going back.

It's really not a long walk. I've done it three times. It's got to amount to only about 5-6 blocks total from the train station to the site; albeit uphill going back.

Just to be more quantitative -- it's a 7 minute walk from the station to the gate of the ruins (where you buy the tickets); another minute or two from there to the start of the ruins (but it's a panoramic walk with a view down onto the excavations).

I find Google underestimates times but at most it is a 10-minute walk.

What a wonderful post. Very useful information and a great review on your site. You put a lot of work into it. Nicely done! :-)

Thank you for the post. We are going in Aug. last time we were in Naples we did sorento, Solerno, etc. so I’m excited to do Pompei and Herculenium this time

There are too many good options for the Naples port. However, since we don't know when or if we'll ever get back, Pompei and Herculenium are a great way to spend the day.

WOW, Just thanks so much for this and your blog post. So much good information.