Anything for kids at Naples/Pompeii, Italy?

[CountryLovingGirl]

Hi,
We went to Lake Garda last August and we enjoyed that (we did hire a car to get around) but we are thinking of going to Naples or Pompeii this year. What is there for kids (ages will be 13 and 9)? We will be hiring a car.

It's a beautiful area. We went 20 years ago and want to take dd (13) asap. We stayed in Sorrento, hired a car and toured up and down the coast. There's so much history to experience - we preferred Herculaneum to Pompeii. Vesuvius is an exciting day out. There is a great train route from Sorrento to Naples called the Circumvesuviana with lovely views. Naples is a noisy busy city - we loved it but I think it's quite a marmite experience. Great pizza of course, funicular railways up to fab views, boat rides across the bay to Capri. Positano is stunning.
Not really a beach destination but there are swimming pontoons with lifts down the cliffside.
Hth.

You could stay further up the coast in Gaeta, Sperlonga or Terracina and travel by train into Naples or Rome for the day. Then you get the beach and city experience.

I hated Naples - found it very dirty, smelly, intimidating. I was very disappointed. We spent 7 days in Rome and got the train to naples for a day trip to pompeii and vesuvius which were both fantastic. We had scheduled our return train so we had a few hours to spend in naples but we spent it in a cafe and couldn't get back to Rome fast enough!

Naples is fascinating but it's not a holiday resort, it's a proper big city. I found that the suburbs between Naples and Pompeii are also not holiday destinations, there are hotels near Pompeii and Vesuvius but I wouldn't want to stay there for more than a couple of nights. I would stay in Sorrento or on the Amalfi coast. The train from Sorrento to Naples stops near all the big sites, and is so easy and frequent, you don't really need a car. Do bear in mind that in August, Sorrento and the Amalfi coast are absolutely heaving busy so getting anywhere by car is slow.

Alternatively, maybe to the north of Naples, as someone else says here, Gaeta, Terracina etc. I haven't been but I think it's not as stunningly beautiful as Amalfi, much flatter but it does have beaches as far as I know.