Rome & Pompeii with kids- how?

[1wokeuplikethis]

I’m a package holiday queen and seemingly useless at booking separate flights/hotels.

we are looking at going to Rome in the Easter holidays (probably NOT actual Easter weekend) with 2 kids. Ideally want to fly to Rome, stay there a couple of nights then get the train to pompeii and stay there a couple of nights and then fly back from Naples.

But I’m struggling hugely with the logistics, can anyone help! Anyone who’s done this, how did you organise?

I looked on skyscanner for flights but they all have stops making the journey 6+hrs, we need direct flights back to the same uk airport we depart from.

im useless at this. Any advice on how to go about booking would be greatly appreciated

Is there a website where you can multiple book one-way flights that’s easier to use than skyscanner? Then I guess I would need to find accommodation in Rome and Pompeii. Or has anyone been to Rome and visited Pompeii for the day? Would one day be long enough to see everything there? In which case I could revert to my package princess ways and just book Rome.

Not done this with kids but the train journey between Rome and Naples is very easy so you should be able to fly to/from either there or Rome easily rather than going to one and back from the other. There is also an excellent local train service (ferrovia circovesuviana) which stops directly outside the ruins, amongst other places. A visit to Herculaneum is also highly recommended (ruins only - the modern town is a bit of a dive!). A day trip by boat to Capri is fun as well, but could be very crowded at Easter.

You need to suss which airlines fly direct to Rome and Naples first by looking at their routes. I find it easier to do this on their own websites rather than Skyscanner And use the month view to work out exact days to fly.

Tone to Naples is v easy by train, I used the RailEurope app to book.

I wouldn't do Pompeii as a day trip from Rome - it merits an entire day and would be very tiring for the kids as a day trip. The bay area merits a few days at least as there is so much to do/see. So I'd fly to Rome, have 2 nights there, get the train to Bay of Naples area and have 2 nights somewhere like Sorrento and then get the train back to Rome to fly home. Or fly to/from Naples and do the reverse.

Edited because spotted in your OP you were thinking 4ish nights rather than a week!

I went to Rome and visited Pompei and Naples for the day. But it was years ago, we booked a city break package and we didn't have kids. The trip was an excursion by coach. So my experience is only useful in the sense that I can tell you it was a really long day and sticks in my memory as such decades later.

Www.trenitalia.it is the equivalent of national rail for looking at trains. Think it has an English version!

This year is a jubilee year in Rome and Easter is going to be mad, even if you're not there for Easter weekend itself, so price up accommodation so you don't end up with a nasty shock after you're locked in with flights.

You can also use the Trainline app for train tickets in Italy, btw.

This is a very good point

We went to Rome with 2 kids in June a few years back. We booked the flights through the airline direct (found the airline by looking at the details in our two closest airports) and I think we got the accommodation through Air BnB but obviously that depends what type of accommodation you want and whether you are happy using Air BnB. Definitely possible to book single flights rather than return. The website The Man in Seat 61 is great for giving really specific details about train travel within Europe - here's the section about Rome to other places in Italy

Use Skyscanner to look for one way flights - look for your airport to Rome, no return. Check those options. Then separately look for Naples to your airport and check those options. You don’t need to book it as a return, just two separate flights.

I wouldn't do Pompeii as a day trip from Rome. It’s a long day. Trains are good. You could either get the train to Naples from Rome, stay in Naples one night, get up and get on the circumvesuviana train direct Naples to Pompeii (or one of the billions of organised trips - look on Viator for lots of independent organised trip options). Or you could arrive in Naples, get a train straight to Pompei town, and stay there overnight before going to Pompeii in the morning. Naples is a bit scummy but for a place to sleep for a couple of nights around Pompeii I’m sure it would be fine.

You should also prebook Pompeii tickets. Apparently they are starting to limit daily numbers. I found it easiest to book them as a tour with a guide, as we def wanted a 1:1 guide. We had a guide for 2-3 hours, then he left us at the place with loos and cafe in the middle of Pompeii and we looked around the rest by ourselves. Worked really well. There are excellent cafes outside Pompeii where you can buy sandwiches to take in, but you couldn’t go back out to get them halfway through - it’s too big and I’m not sure you’d be let back in. The lunch q in the cafe would be massive at Easter - we went Oct half term and it was quite quiet but still a fair bit of queueing. (Incidentally Oct half term was perfect weather and all quite quiet tourist wise).

Our holiday didn’t do Rome - we stayed near Sorrento and used the coastal train to get up and down to Pompeii, Vesuvius, and the ferry out to capri. Was lovely!

What’s your local airport? If there are no direct flights on skyscanner then there aren’t any, there are no magical secret flights.

Google flights is the easiest because it will tell you the nearest airport for a direct flight,

You can use either BA or Easyjet for direct flights. With easyjet it'd be 2 separate 1 way bookings, with BA you can use multi city option and get both flights on same booking. You'd book London- Rome, then Naples to London.

Rome is extremely busy this year. The ques are longer than ever and some monuments that haven't previously required a ticket now do. It's still my favorite city in the world, but you won't be able to do much in a few days especially given travel times etc.

It's extremely easy to catch a train between the 2. But will take time again, obviously.

Honestly, I wouldn't attempt Rome and Naples in a 4 day trip. Pick either, and for Naples base yourself somewhere on the Amalfi Coast rather than Naples itself.

I'd pick Amalfi and go to Rome when it's not Jubilee year.

Happy to answer any more questions.

We have done a day trip to Pompeii from Rome with 2 boys aged about 8 and 10. We also did Vesuvius the same day.

We stayed at a hotel right next to the main station in Rome so will have been on a very early train. It was August so very hot. We went up Vesuvius in the morning and carried on to Pompeii in the afternoon.

To be honest I would have liked more time in Pompeii but whilst he likes to visit places DH is not keen on lingering once we have seen what we need to.

We usually book flights through skyscanner trains via rail Europe and hotels through booking.com.

It’s not going to get you a fantastic deal, but is very convenient and means you can pay it off like a package deal - BA do a split holiday so you can choose where to fly in, where to fly out and multiple different hotels, I usually just book one hotel as long as you are booking one night, you don’t have to have a hotel booked for every night and use a cheaper comparison website to book the rest as that saved me quite a bit on hotel rooms.

Also I did visit Rome and visit pompeii for the day. I booked an excursion and it was a whole day trip. I loved it. Would 100% recommend. I also much preferred Rome to Naples

We spent a whole day at Pompeii, another at Herculaneum (which we preferred) and another climbing Vesuvius!

I would go to Sorrento and do that area for four days - day wandering in Sorrento, booked excursion to Pompeii and Herculaneum, booked boat trip day out to Capri.

I’d do Rome separately but that’s just me. I have done the above holiday and found it enough. I did a day trip to Rome from a holiday in Tuscany.

There's an app called Tripit that you can use to create an itinerary, helps keep track of all the separate bookings

Thank you so much for all the replies. This is really helpful.

I get the feeling I might be biting off more than chewable thinking we could do Rome & day trip to Pompeii. Kids are 12 & 9 so they can manage quite a bit but I wouldn’t want to rush it.

Hadnt realised it was jubilee year, but had considered it would be heaving for Easter. There are some great ideas here to either just do Rome, or base ourselves in Sorrento and do the day trips - I like that idea a lot.

The kids love history; for those who have been, if we had to pick Rome or Pompeii, which would they enjoy more do you think?

Book flights directly with easyJet or Ryan air, they offer one way, then you can book the train via the train line app. If you choose the slower train it's really cheap.

Perfectly doable to do a dual centre trip. Just travel light, everyone takes their own bags

The kids love history; for those who have been, if we had to pick Rome or Pompeii, which would they enjoy more do you think?

Mine both enjoyed history and we have been to many historical sites such as Pompeii and cities such as Rome on our travels.

However I have to say they enjoyed the trip up Vesuvius just as much (we still have the volcanic rocks they collected). They have also enjoyed other climbs/trips up mountains on other holidays so maybe it's just us.

We did this in October 2023 when DS was 10.

We flew into Naples, stayed in a holiday let in Pompeii for 3 nights. We had a day visiting the Pompeii ruins. Next day we got the train to Ercole to see the Herculaneum ruins and go up Vesuvius. After that we got the train to Rome for a few days. Flew home from Rome.

It did take lots of planning to make sure we had tickets for everything. Worth it though.

Edited to add: I’ll ask DS which he preferred when he’s up.

They say you should spend at least a month in Rome to do it properly (not sure who they are!) but We saw a reasonable amount in four days. We went in the summer last year and it was very crowded and very hot. I found I liked wandering the smaller streets having not liked the city at all at the beginning.

I have done Vesuvius and Pompei in a day trip from Naples. I think I could have spent longer on those and lots of people say Herculaneum is better. I think pick one or the other with a four day trip. Both amazing for kids who like history,

Pre book your big sites - I used get your guide.