Day Trip From Rome To Pompeii: Italy Part 4
Figuring Out The Train
On our second full day in Italy, we took the train from Rome to Pompeii. Train travel in Italy is very easy, but we were nervous until we'd done it the first time. So, the first part of my post is all about how to get there.
There are two high-speed train choices, Trenitalia and Italo. To get to Pompeii, you'll go to Naples (the ride is about 1 hr. 15 min.) then a commuter train to the site (30 min). You can purchase the high speed tickets ahead online, but not the commuter train. The Italo trains are the newest, and I found their website easier to manage than Trenitalia, even though the navigation on the page was a little confusing. You can also use Rail Europe's website, which will add a booking fee. Also, the earlier you purchase your tickets prior to the trip, the cheaper they are. I bought them online over a month in advance, and tickets are available up to 120 days in advance. You'll have to guess at how long you'll want to stay at Pompeii and choose your return ticket time accordingly. Remember you have to account for the fact that you could wait up to 30 minutes for the commuter train that gets you back to Naples. I had us scheduled to arrive in Naples at 10:28 am and to leave Naples at 5:25 pm. That gave us more than enough time. There's shopping and food at the Naples train station, so we figured we'd be able to kill time if needed.
This is how it works with Italo. Choose and purchase your tickets on the Italo website. It automatically assigns you a seat which you can change if you want. You'll get an email with a ticket code and a link to download a PDF. There is a QR code on the PDF, and as long as you have that pulled up on your phone, you don't need to print out any tickets, validate tickets at the station, or do anything at the kiosk in the station. Of course, it's always a good idea to have the paper copy as a backup, but I just used my phone. You don't need a copy for each passenger in your family - just the one that shows you purchased tickets for all of you.
The PDF shows your train number. Once you get to the station, you'll look at the big schedule board (just like at an airport) and find your train number. At 15-20 min. before departure time, it will tell you what platform your train is on. Your PDF ticket will have your coach and seat number. Walk to the platform, (you may have to show your ticket here - sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't), find the car that corresponds to your coach number, get on and find your seat. Sometime after the train has left the station, a conductor will come and check your ticket. Just show your phone.
There's not much point arriving at the station more than 20-30 min prior to departure; however, if getting there requires getting a taxi as it did for us, don't cut it too close! We made our first train by the skin of our teeth! Our hotel clerk said the taxi would take only 4 min. to arrive, and he'd call right away. He called 10 min. later and the taxi took 15 min. to arrive. We pulled up to the Rome train station at 5 min. until departure, ran for our platform and sat down on our train with 1 minute of margin (ONE MINUTE). Whew! There were fist bumps all around, and for once, we were happy for a crazy Italian cab driver!
Once in Naples, you'll go downstairs for the commuter train which is called the circumvesuviana. It's easy to follow the signs. You'll buy your ticket at the window, validate it at a machine on the wall (weird but necessary step), then put your ticket into a turnstile machine and go down to the platform. The platform and train are very crowded. Think rush hour on the subway in NYC. Standing room only in a subway-style car, no AC, and it's a 30 min. ride. Because it's so very crowded, this is an ideal spot for pickpocketers, so guard your stuff. The Naples station has a pretty bad reputation for theft, and this is a good reason to use a money belt. Wear your purse cross-body and keep your hand on it in front of you. If you can manage to suffer for the 30 minutes you have to be on the circumvesuviana, you'll get off right at the entrance to the archeological site.
Here are some good sites with information about train travel in Italy:
How To Travel Around Italy By Train
A Beginner's Guide To Train Travel In Italy
Once You Get There
Once you arrive, you'll be relieved to see that there's a restroom (labeled WC for water closet - wait, are we in England? I had to explain it to another American tourist!) and a canteen where you can get food.
A word about the bathrooms. The toilets in the Naples station and at Pompeii had only a rim. No seat. Thinking I had gone into the men's room by mistake, I looked out of the stall only to realize that the room was indeed full of women. Weird. (#ThingsRickStevesDidn'tMention) Also, in public places, you have to pay to use the toilet, anywhere from 50 cents to 1 euro. Keep some coins handy. Some of those machines don't make change.
Don't be pressured to make a quick decision about tickets into the park. There are hawkers all around telling you that you can get a skip-the-line guided tour - "Quick! Leaving right now!" You're hot and tired from that terrible commuter train, and you bite. So you go upstairs in the office and buy the tour tickets, and rush out to find the group that's gathered with the guide. Then, she starts collecting money for entrance into the park - an additional 12 euros each. Wait, what? To be fair, I'm glad we got the tour, but we felt a little deceived. So if you go, now you know. There really wasn't much of a line, so only get the skip the line tickets if you want the tour.
Of course, you don't have to take a tour. You can explore on your own. Rick Steves has good audio guides that you can download for free onto your smartphone. You can also purchase audio guides. Or you can just go it alone with a map. But, do realize that the site is HUGE, and there are no placards explaining what you're seeing. On our 2-hour tour, we saw a small fraction - just the highlights. On a very hot day, it was enough, and we learned so much from our guide.
Now, was it worth all that? It was! The ruins are amazing, and it's so fascinating to hear how they lived. We saw houses, shops, bathhouses, a brothel, and a temple for Apollo. They even had fast food places, y'all! It's sobering to see the plaster casts of the residents who suffocated in the ash from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. There's even a cast of a dog. I loved in particular seeing the mosaic floors that remain in some of the ruins. Be sure to take a collapsible water bottle and start your tour with it full. There are not many places to refill it. We only passed one on our tour.
Some of our friends have told us that Herculaneum is a better place to visit. The ruins are better preserved and there are fewer tourists. If I had it to do again, I might go there instead. The process of getting there from Rome is pretty similar - train to Naples then circumvesuviana to Ercolana. I think you have to walk a little bit from the station.
When you're ready to return on the train, you can get a return ticket for the circumvesuviana to Naples there in the little building on the tracks. Be sure to validate your ticket in the little machine on the wall that he points you to. You could be asked to show it at some point.
We were tired and hot when we got back to Rome, and asked our hotel guy to recommend an informal pizza place. He sent us to Pizzo Ciro. It's a chain, and we realized later that there was a Pizza Ciro closer than the one he sent us to. However, it's right off Piazzo Navona and probably slammed with tourists. The one we went to was on a lovely, quiet little back street and seemed more of a local neighborhood hangout. Let me say this about pizza in Italy. Those of us who are southern know that iced tea in a bottle is not really the same drink as the home-brewed stuff. It shares the name, and might be tasty in its own right, but it's not real tea. I love my Papa John's, but I know now that it's not real pizza. At Pizza Ciro, I had a beautiful pizza with prosciutto and arugula. It was heavenly. Later in the trip, we ate pizza at a non-chain restaurant I've seen recommended on several sites. Honestly, my pizza at Pizza Ciro was as good as the one we had at the nicer restaurant.
We walked 6.6 miles on this day. I got a little sunburned. I sweated until the salt had crystallized and turned crusty on my face. I felt nasty from the train. But, we saw Pompeii, and I ate real pizza. And it was good.
Back to the index
Part 5
There are two high-speed train choices, Trenitalia and Italo. To get to Pompeii, you'll go to Naples (the ride is about 1 hr. 15 min.) then a commuter train to the site (30 min). You can purchase the high speed tickets ahead online, but not the commuter train. The Italo trains are the newest, and I found their website easier to manage than Trenitalia, even though the navigation on the page was a little confusing. You can also use Rail Europe's website, which will add a booking fee. Also, the earlier you purchase your tickets prior to the trip, the cheaper they are. I bought them online over a month in advance, and tickets are available up to 120 days in advance. You'll have to guess at how long you'll want to stay at Pompeii and choose your return ticket time accordingly. Remember you have to account for the fact that you could wait up to 30 minutes for the commuter train that gets you back to Naples. I had us scheduled to arrive in Naples at 10:28 am and to leave Naples at 5:25 pm. That gave us more than enough time. There's shopping and food at the Naples train station, so we figured we'd be able to kill time if needed.
This is how it works with Italo. Choose and purchase your tickets on the Italo website. It automatically assigns you a seat which you can change if you want. You'll get an email with a ticket code and a link to download a PDF. There is a QR code on the PDF, and as long as you have that pulled up on your phone, you don't need to print out any tickets, validate tickets at the station, or do anything at the kiosk in the station. Of course, it's always a good idea to have the paper copy as a backup, but I just used my phone. You don't need a copy for each passenger in your family - just the one that shows you purchased tickets for all of you.
The PDF shows your train number. Once you get to the station, you'll look at the big schedule board (just like at an airport) and find your train number. At 15-20 min. before departure time, it will tell you what platform your train is on. Your PDF ticket will have your coach and seat number. Walk to the platform, (you may have to show your ticket here - sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't), find the car that corresponds to your coach number, get on and find your seat. Sometime after the train has left the station, a conductor will come and check your ticket. Just show your phone.
There's not much point arriving at the station more than 20-30 min prior to departure; however, if getting there requires getting a taxi as it did for us, don't cut it too close! We made our first train by the skin of our teeth! Our hotel clerk said the taxi would take only 4 min. to arrive, and he'd call right away. He called 10 min. later and the taxi took 15 min. to arrive. We pulled up to the Rome train station at 5 min. until departure, ran for our platform and sat down on our train with 1 minute of margin (ONE MINUTE). Whew! There were fist bumps all around, and for once, we were happy for a crazy Italian cab driver!
Once in Naples, you'll go downstairs for the commuter train which is called the circumvesuviana. It's easy to follow the signs. You'll buy your ticket at the window, validate it at a machine on the wall (weird but necessary step), then put your ticket into a turnstile machine and go down to the platform. The platform and train are very crowded. Think rush hour on the subway in NYC. Standing room only in a subway-style car, no AC, and it's a 30 min. ride. Because it's so very crowded, this is an ideal spot for pickpocketers, so guard your stuff. The Naples station has a pretty bad reputation for theft, and this is a good reason to use a money belt. Wear your purse cross-body and keep your hand on it in front of you. If you can manage to suffer for the 30 minutes you have to be on the circumvesuviana, you'll get off right at the entrance to the archeological site.
Here are some good sites with information about train travel in Italy:
How To Travel Around Italy By Train
A Beginner's Guide To Train Travel In Italy
Once You Get There
Once you arrive, you'll be relieved to see that there's a restroom (labeled WC for water closet - wait, are we in England? I had to explain it to another American tourist!) and a canteen where you can get food.
A word about the bathrooms. The toilets in the Naples station and at Pompeii had only a rim. No seat. Thinking I had gone into the men's room by mistake, I looked out of the stall only to realize that the room was indeed full of women. Weird. (#ThingsRickStevesDidn'tMention) Also, in public places, you have to pay to use the toilet, anywhere from 50 cents to 1 euro. Keep some coins handy. Some of those machines don't make change.
Don't be pressured to make a quick decision about tickets into the park. There are hawkers all around telling you that you can get a skip-the-line guided tour - "Quick! Leaving right now!" You're hot and tired from that terrible commuter train, and you bite. So you go upstairs in the office and buy the tour tickets, and rush out to find the group that's gathered with the guide. Then, she starts collecting money for entrance into the park - an additional 12 euros each. Wait, what? To be fair, I'm glad we got the tour, but we felt a little deceived. So if you go, now you know. There really wasn't much of a line, so only get the skip the line tickets if you want the tour.
Of course, you don't have to take a tour. You can explore on your own. Rick Steves has good audio guides that you can download for free onto your smartphone. You can also purchase audio guides. Or you can just go it alone with a map. But, do realize that the site is HUGE, and there are no placards explaining what you're seeing. On our 2-hour tour, we saw a small fraction - just the highlights. On a very hot day, it was enough, and we learned so much from our guide.
Now, was it worth all that? It was! The ruins are amazing, and it's so fascinating to hear how they lived. We saw houses, shops, bathhouses, a brothel, and a temple for Apollo. They even had fast food places, y'all! It's sobering to see the plaster casts of the residents who suffocated in the ash from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. There's even a cast of a dog. I loved in particular seeing the mosaic floors that remain in some of the ruins. Be sure to take a collapsible water bottle and start your tour with it full. There are not many places to refill it. We only passed one on our tour.
Some of our friends have told us that Herculaneum is a better place to visit. The ruins are better preserved and there are fewer tourists. If I had it to do again, I might go there instead. The process of getting there from Rome is pretty similar - train to Naples then circumvesuviana to Ercolana. I think you have to walk a little bit from the station.
When you're ready to return on the train, you can get a return ticket for the circumvesuviana to Naples there in the little building on the tracks. Be sure to validate your ticket in the little machine on the wall that he points you to. You could be asked to show it at some point.
We were tired and hot when we got back to Rome, and asked our hotel guy to recommend an informal pizza place. He sent us to Pizzo Ciro. It's a chain, and we realized later that there was a Pizza Ciro closer than the one he sent us to. However, it's right off Piazzo Navona and probably slammed with tourists. The one we went to was on a lovely, quiet little back street and seemed more of a local neighborhood hangout. Let me say this about pizza in Italy. Those of us who are southern know that iced tea in a bottle is not really the same drink as the home-brewed stuff. It shares the name, and might be tasty in its own right, but it's not real tea. I love my Papa John's, but I know now that it's not real pizza. At Pizza Ciro, I had a beautiful pizza with prosciutto and arugula. It was heavenly. Later in the trip, we ate pizza at a non-chain restaurant I've seen recommended on several sites. Honestly, my pizza at Pizza Ciro was as good as the one we had at the nicer restaurant.
We walked 6.6 miles on this day. I got a little sunburned. I sweated until the salt had crystallized and turned crusty on my face. I felt nasty from the train. But, we saw Pompeii, and I ate real pizza. And it was good.
Back to the index
Part 5
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