Travel to Pompei Italy

What to do and see while you are in Pompeii
(Travel and tourist guide to the archaeological site of Pompei)

Travel Guide • Visit Pompeii




◉ Basic Information about the history of Pompeii:

Pompeii or Pompei is located in Campania Italy, not far from the city of Naples.
Its major attraction (with approximately 2.5 million visitors annually) is the ruined ancient Roman city of the same name, which was destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mountain Vesuvius in 79 AD.
Pompeii is (since 1997) a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Historical information:
The Ancient Pompeii was a city in southern Italy, on the side of the Tyrrhenian Sea, near the present-day city of Naples.
It was built in the 5th century BC from Greeks on the coast of Campania at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, near Rome.

Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. Boscoreale and Stabiae), was buried under 4 to 6 meters (13 to 20 ft) of volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.

Largely preserved under the ash, the excavated city offers a unique snapshot of Roman life, frozen at the moment it was buried and providing an extraordinarily detailed insight into the everyday life of its inhabitants.

It was a wealthy town, enjoying many fine public buildings and luxurious private houses with lavish decorations, furnishings and works of art which were the main attractions for the early excavators.

Organic remains, including wooden objects and human bodies, were entombed in the ash and decayed leaving voids which archaeologists found could be used as moulds to make plaster casts of unique and often gruesome figures in their final moments of life.

The numerous graffiti carved on the walls and inside rooms provide a wealth of examples of the largely lost Vulgar Latin spoken colloquially at the time, contrasting with the formal language of the classical writers.

After many excavations prior to 1960 that had uncovered most of the city but left it in decay, further major excavations were banned and instead they were limited to targeted, prioritised areas.
In 2018, these led to new discoveries in some previously unexplored areas of the city.

Pompeii is an excavation (Italian: Scavi) site and outdoor museum of the ancient Roman settlement.
This site is considered to be one of the few sites where an ancient city has been preserved in detail; everything from jars and tables, to paintings and people were frozen in time, together with neighbouring Herculaneum which suffered the same fate, an unprecedented opportunity to see how the people lived two thousand years ago.

Historic Information: wikipedia.org and wikitravel.org




Lily's tips:

Did you know that:
Pompeii was built in the 5th century BC. from the Greeks on the coast of Campania, 14 miles (23 km) southeast of Naples, at the (southeastern) base of Mount Vesuvius.
Pompeii fell into the hands of the Romans in 89 BC but it was greatly influenced in art, architecture and religion by the great Greco-Roman culture.
That's why when you'll visit Pompei's archaelogical park, you will recognise many greek statues as well as greek temples, dedicated to Greek (and later) Roman gods like the temple of Apollo or the Temple of Jupiter (the Roman version of Greek god Zeus).



1.✔ Best time to visit Pompeii:

• The busiest months to visit Pompeii are May and August.
The most popular days to visit are the weekend and the free Sundays (every first Sunday of the month from November to April).
If you visit the archaelogical site of Pompeii in the middle of the week it will guarantee less crowds.

Peak hours for entrance are between 10 and 11 a.m.
It's quite crowded inside during this time because it's when most one-day trip groups arrive and start exploring the site.

You should also always remember that visiting Pompeii while it's raining isn't a good idea at all.
Except for the annoying rain you'll find all the way (there are not enough sheds as you can imagine), everything is colored gray-brown, soaked (especially if it was raining the previous days) and extremely muddy.

Last but not least - baby carriages and wheelchairs can comfortably perform only on a specific route:
From the entrance of Piazza Anfiteatro (in Pompeii), you can follow (with the free map provided at the entrance) a 3 km trail, specially for wheelchairs or strollers including the amphitheater, the gym and some Roman houses.

There are also many Baby Points in the archaeological park (small bungalows marked on the map):
You can always ask for the keys at the entrance of the park and use these spaces to change and feed your baby in privacy.



✔ Tickets to visit Pompeii:

Ticket Price of Pompei:
Regular ticket: €15.00 per person to visit only the Pompeii site.
Reduced ticket: €9 per person
Entrance is free to all EU citizens under 18 and EU citizens under 24 have a special discount. In fact visitors aged 18-25 are able to visit Italy’s state-owned attractions at any time for just two euros.

In case you decide to visit 3 Sites: POMPEII, OPLONTIS (ancient wealthy village situated between Pompeii and Herculaneum), BOSCOREALE (located north of Pompeii), the ticket costs €18.00 and you can use it as a three days pass in the row (3 consecutive days, including the day of purchase. Only one entrance is permitted to each site).

Tickets can only be purchased either from the official ticket offices at the entrances to the sites or from the online ticketing service (TicketOne).
Τhe official ticket offices are located only inside the Park.
Any ticket seller outside the main entrances is not in any way linked to the management of the Pompeii Archaeological Park.

Also on the first Sunday of every month (from October to March), it is free entrance at Pompeii and EU citizens under the age of 18 already receive free entry all the time to all Italy’s museums, along with humanities students.



✔ Where to Eat in Pompeii:

For a full day to Pompeii the best option for lunch is packing some sandwiches to eat inside the park in one of the marked picnic areas around the ruins. Purchase your supplies in Naples or Sorrento, as the few restaurants and the snack bars right outside and (there is a Cafe Bar Restaurant) inside the park are quite expensive.



✔ Visit the ancient ruins of Pompeii:

Pompeii was an ancient Roman city (located near Naples) in the Campania region of Italy which along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area was buried under 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 ft) of volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on 24 August AD 79.

Nowadays Pompeii is a UNESCO World Heritage Site status and is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Italy, with approximately 2.5 million visitors annually.

Largely preserved under the ash, the excavated city offers a unique snapshot of Roman life, frozen at the moment it was buried and providing an extraordinarily detailed insight into the everyday life of its inhabitants.

Also from 1st April – 31th October the last entrance is at 18.00 while from 1st November – 31th March is at 15.30.

During summer and at the weekends to avoid face the line or the long queues to enter the site we recommend buying in advance online tickets.

You can hire an authorized tour guide if you want (two-hour guided tours cost about €11/visitor) and you can find them at the park entrance.
But you should know that Pompeii ticket includes a map and small pocket guide to the site which leads you number by number through the not-to-miss sights plus that you can also download for free, the comprehensive Pompeii guide PDF that is an explanation of all of the excavations by the Board of Cultural Heritage of Pompeii if you want.



✔ Hours of visiting Pompeii:

Hours for Pompeii and Herculaneum:
April through October: 9am - 7:30pm (last entry at 6pm)
November through March: 9am - 5pm (last entry at 3:30pm)
Closed: 1 January, 1 May, 25 December


Check more information about your visit to Pompeii on these sites here: visitpompeiivesuvius and pompeiisites.org

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