Pompeii & Herculaneum

[MrsK]

We’re spending a long weekend in Naples with the intention of visiting Pompeii & Herculaneum. Does anyone have any helpful tips

thank you

They are both easily accessible by train from the main station, and you can access Vesuvius from the train station for either location. We went from Pompeii on the public bus, it's more like a private shuttle from Ercolano. Need to pre-book tickets for Vesuvius unless you go a tour. We spent about 4 hours at Herculaneum and about 6 at Pompeii but missed a few things at Pompeii. The archaeology museum Naples is also interesting. There are quite a few interesting sites in Naples, but it's a bit grimy.

I believe the first Sunday of the month is free entry to Pompeii. You need to request the tickets at the ticket desk, but it can be very busy on those days. Also a good idea to get there early in any case, it is fantastic when there are fewer people there before it fills up.
There are guides for hire inside the ticket area, they usually try to get a group of people all speaking the same language. The first time we went we used a guide in a group of about 8 people, and it was well worth it. He was an archeology student and full of interesting facts we wouldn't have otherwise known.
Do some research before you go and choose a few things you really want to see, it's impossible to get round it all.
Most of the interesting artefacts are in the museum in Naples, which is well worth s visit.

I’ve just been!
It is worth going on a guided tour at both, I booked through GetMyGuide for both. I did the tours in the morning and then stayed and looked around myself for a bit. Pompeii tour
Take you own snacks/packed lunch. There is a cafe at Pompeii but it was very busy. At Herculaneum there are just vending machines.
I stayed in a gorgeous villa converted to a hotel about 10 minutes walk from the Herculaneum site but then had to walk about 20 minutes in the evening to the town to get something to eat. Next time I would stay nearer the town centre. I didn’t fancy staying in Naples and it was much cheaper in Herculaneum.
The museum in Naples is closed on one day in the week, Tuesday I think, so if you want to go to it then plan accordingly. I didn’t and couldnt see it. 🙄
The trains are very cheap, about €2 return Naples to Herculaneum.
Naples was busy but interesting but I didn’t spend much time there. I never felt worried about pick pockets and there were virtually no beggars or people trying to sell you tat. Lots of tourist tat in the shops!
You can get a bus from the airport to the city centre train station for €5 but there are lots of tours offering the same trip in a shared taxi for the same price. I’d probably get one of them if I went again as it would have been quicker.
You can do ALOT of walking, I did 20k+ steps per day so take comfortable shoes.

Pompeii is massive. When I was there last summer there was one small cafe open for the entire site. So take a packed lunch.

It's a beautiful site and you can easily spend the whole day there.

The train between Naples & Sorrento gets a bit crowded. But it's not a long journey.

I love Pompeii. Enjoy.

If you want a guide I recommend Askos tours- fantastic

I did a pre-booked tour of Herculaneum with an archeologist last year via Get Your Guide - it was definitely worth it as he put everything into context and took us in to some areas not generally open. We stayed in Naples. The underground tour there was also very good. And take funicular to top of the hill and walk back down through the Spanish Quarter. We didn't have time for the museum. Hoping to do that next year.

And yes - take water and snacks.

There’s a nice restaurant opposite the entrance to Pompeii - there’s a few but it’s called Hortus Porta Marina and it’s clean, lovely service and decent food.
We got the train from Naples - go down to the basement level and along to the ticket desk and get your ticket from there.
Train was packed and unpleasant but we survived
Then got a guide inside the entrance to Pompeii who was great
Naples itself is absolutely GRIM but I sort of loved it. It took me back to backpacking days when it wasn’t all about the absolute best restaurant and the best hotel etc. Just eating stuff for a a euro and dodging Vespas.

in Naples - this is restaurant apparently is the home of pizza. Its a fab place to eat, and do try a pizza with the pumpkin sauce base. It is 100% delicious and the pumpkin sauce is a game changer.

https://www.anticapizzeriaportalba.com/

My daughters were 12 & 16 and they both found Naples terrifying. I loved it though & will go back on an adult only trip.

Ah Naples or 'Death by Motor Scooter' as my DH calls it. We've been a few times to Naples. We live in Malta so it's really cheap to fly there. Both Pompeii and Herculaneum are well with the money so is the trip up to Vesuvius.

Pompeii: arrive as it opens and leg it out to some of the smaller villas so that you can get a feeling for them before the crowds build. Then return to the forum and the streets around when they are busy, as they would have been in Roman times.

Herculaneum: just bloody amazing. All that carbonised wood, so you can see the furniture and the doors.

Thank you everyone for taking time to comment on my post

Yes - the detail at Herculaneum is incredible - you can't believe it still exists. It's reminded me that when we went, DH said to the archeologist that in Pompeii, there were penises carved into the street to indicate a house of ill repute. So the guy said (as loud as possible) "So you want to see penises then Sir??" And then later we came across one and he called DH to the front " Here's a penis for you sir!" Whilst i muttered things about not being able to take him anywhere 😱😂

Mary Beard's book on Pompeii is great and has highlights for a visit. The excavations are extensive and there are other villas beyond the boundaries. There id an underground theatre at Herculaneum, only accessible at certain times. In the other direction from Naples is Baia, partially submerged.

Our guide said that the knobs were a good luck symbol for wealth and plenty.

We did the same, definitely worth it, spent double the time there looking at areas not covered in the tour. We didnt bother with Pompei in the end but still want to go back to see it.

Just come back from there, as everyone says, easily accessible by train from Naples or Sorrento. We downloaded audio guide apps as we wanted to be able to move at our own pace around the site, worked well for pompeii.

@MagpiePi yep, knobs signify good fortune! @MrsK Look for the penis birds in the museum 😁