Tours for Rome to Pompeii
 

We are a family of 4, and would like to do a day trip to Pompeii, possibly including Herculeum or Sorrento. Reading the various postings on this subject, it sounds like a private guide may be the best way to accomplish this, without wasteing time in at a cameo factory or some other factory outlet. This could end up being very expensive though. Is anyone familar with a tour company from Rome which allows you to spend more time in Pompeii(3 hours) and also does Herculeum, or something more culturally enlightening?

This article, about do-it-yourself day tripping to Pompeii can be read for free.<BR><BR>Go to http://www.nytimes.com/top/features/travel/destinations/europe/italy/index.html<BR><BR>and scroll down to this one.<BR><BR>This is part of a new Travel section archive, which is all available free. As always registration is required<BR><BR>I pasted only the first two paragraphs, and some of the final dozen practical info paragraphs.<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex<BR><BR>======================== ===========<BR><BR>DAY TRIP; Going Back in Time, Briefly <BR>By MAUREEN B. FANT <BR><BR>THE ancient sites of the Bay of Naples deserve a couple of weeks, but sometimes all you have is a day to make an excursion from Rome. Since friends often ask me about the wisdom of such a day trip, as well as whether they should take an organized tour, hire a guide or go solo, I decided to try it myself. I traveled alone entirely by rail, starting a little before 7 a.m. at the Colosseo subway station near my home in Rome. I returned 12 hours and 15 minutes later after a most diverting day. <BR><BR>Pompeii, which once was a city of perhaps as many as 20,000, has been an active archaeological site of staggering importance since 1748, when excavations began. Along with a number of other towns and scattered farms, it disappeared beneath the detritus of an eruption of Mount Vesuvius on Aug. 24, A.D. 79. <BR><BR>...<BR><BR>Getting There <BR><BR>From the Termini station in Rome, there are trains to Naples, either Napoli Centrale or Napoli Piazza Garibaldi (essentially the same station, one upstairs, the other downstairs). <BR><BR>...<BR><BR>The trip between Rome and Naples takes about two hours; a round-trip ticket costs about $60 for first class and $40 for second class. <BR><BR>In Naples, the private Circumvesuviana railroad leaves from Piazza Garibaldi about every half hour. (Schedules can be downloaded from www.campaniatrasporti.it or www.vesuviana.it. Insert Pompei Scavi as your destination.) At Piazza Garibaldi, go first to the Circumvesuviana ticket booths and buy a round-trip ticket to Pompei Scavi (about $4). Follow the signs to the Sorrento line (not the Sarno line). Pompei Scavi-Villa dei Misteri station is about a half hour from Naples; it is the station after Torre Annunziata. <BR><BR>On the return trip, get off at the second-to-last station, marked Collegamento FS, which is linked by a corridor to Piazza Garibaldi where you will find the train back to Rome. <BR><BR>If you have lunch in modern Pompei, you can return to Naples from the Pompei Circumvesuviana station, on the Sarno line. (The Sorrento line return ticket will be honored.) <BR><BR>At Pompeii <BR><BR>The site is open daily (except May 1, Dec. 25 and Jan. 1) 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in winter, 7:30 p.m. in summer, with the last entry about 90 minutes before closing time. Admission is about $8 and is also good for other Vesuvian sites -- Oplontis, Herculaneum, Stabiae and Boscoreale -- on the same day. <BR><BR>

It can be done as a day trip but it's a loooong grueling day. My only suggestion is try to find 4 to 6 others and get a private guide for roughly $100. A good guide can make it come alive in so much more detail than a book.

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We just returned from visiting Pompeii in late July. We took a train from Rome to Salerno and made that our base for 2 days. From Salerno, there are several daily buses that leave near the train station costing approx. $2 euro that take you directly to Pompeii in under 1 hour's time. We arrived mid-morning and returned late afternoon. We did not need a tour guide as the audio guides and accompanying guide books were very helpful. You definitely need time to explore the huge site - it is immense and be prepared to walk, walk, walk. It is well worth the trip and very interesting!

Don't do both Herc and Pomp in same daytrip; the former adds little to the latter. I'd skip the guide as well; I think many of the posters you've read would rather shoot $ out in howitzers than do the slightest studying of a guidebook and map. A guide can actually be limiting and has perverse motivation to shorten your walk and artificially spice up unremarkable sites with splashy stories aimed more at inspiring a tip than authenticity.

Hello Mary,<BR><BR>I believe the coach tours from Rome all offer basically the same tour, - and all have the same problem IMO: they don't allow enough time at Pompei, I think.<BR><BR>It's an easy trip to do independantly by train as others have said. There's also a Rome-Pompei bus service - which leaves from Tiburtina.<BR><BR>You could easily combine Pompei with Herculaneum, the Museum in Naples, Sorrento ... or a trip up Vesuvius, among other options. <BR><BR>Steve<BR><BR>