I'll be in Italy for just under two weeks and one of the places on my "to-see" list is Pompeii-- I've always been fascinated with it. I do want to see the "big three" also, and was wondering how feasible Pompeii is as a daytrip. I'll be in Italy in early December.

Thanks for the advice!

I assume you mean a day trip from Rome?

Hop on an early high speed train from Rome to Naples (1.5 - 2 hours). Then take the Circumvesuviana train and exit and Pompeii Scavi (30 minutes). It drops you off very close (100 meters or so) to the Porta Marina entrance to the ruins.

Then do the reverse to get back to Rome. It would be a long day but sounds like you definitely want to see it so go for it.

Daytrip directions
http://tinyurl.com/mhnvr
Regards, Walter

We recently did this as a day trip from Rome, in the manner described by saps. To make things a little easier, we purchased tickets for the high speed train the day before at the American Express office near the Spanish Steps. It was a long day, but definitely worth doing for us.

If you've always wanted to go to Pompeii, then go for it, but keep in mind that Ostia Antica, just a half-hour outside Rome, is pretty darn fabulous, too. Friends of mine who've been to both actually preferred Ostia Antica (I haven't been to Pompeii so can't make a comparison).

ttt

Lots of people do it as a day trip, but if you are deeply interested, you might want to consider an overnight in Naples. That way you can spend more time at the ruins -- and four to six hours is not too long -- and visit the Archaeological Museum in Naples the next day. The museum houses some of the finest artifacts from Pompeii. You might even be able to squeeze in a visit to Herculaneum or to climb Vesuvius.

Ostia is a great day trip from Rome and has a few things which Pompeii does not, such as multi-storied apartment buildings. Overall, though, I do not think it nearly as rich as Pompeii. It was slowly abandoned, and looted and so does not have the same "frozen in time" quality.

Somy advice is to whittle a night from somewhere else and spend it in Naples.

Thanks all! I''ll definitely plan on the daytrip and perhaps stay overnight if I think I can spare a day!

If you can afford it, we really enjoyed our private tour guide, Pepe, who walked us around for about 2 hours and gave us great information about what we were seeing.

There are licensed guides out front that will approach you. It was about 90E but we were very glad that we did it. Several people asked if they could join us but Pepe shoo'd them away.

After the tour, Pepe, told us a few things we should do on our own and we spent 2 more hours just wandering.