Naples itineraries: 2 and 3 days hour by hour, day trips included

A Naples itinerary of two or three days is built on three constraints, not on a list of lovely things. The first: on Tuesday the MANN, Cappella Sansevero and the Reggia di Caserta close, on Wednesday the Palazzo Reale and the catacombs. The second: the three tickets with a compulsory slot — the Gran Cono of Vesuvius, Pompeii, Sansevero — have to be bought in advance and they set the clock for two days out of three. The third: the last train from Pompei Scavi leaves at 22:40 and the one from Sorrento at 22:02, so the evening is less elastic than it looks.

What follows is a two-day plan and a three-day one, with the real times of the Circumvesuviana trains and of bus 808, plus an 8-hour version for cruise arrivals. Every day ends with the booking to make for the next one. Partner product prices are verified regularly.

Two days: the city on the first, Pompeii and Vesuvius on the second

The logic is simple: the first day everything inside one square kilometre of the old centre, the second a single long trip out done properly. Do not try to squeeze Capri into the second day: the crossing eats three hours and you come back feeling you have seen a port.

Three notes on this plan. The MANN goes before Pompeii and not after: the frescoes, the mosaics and the bronzes from the Pompeian houses are in the museum, and what remains on site are the walls — the room-by-room route is on the MANN page. Cappella Sansevero at 11:45 works because that is the hour when the morning groups have left and the afternoon ones have not arrived. And the Tesoro di San Gennaro at 16:45 is the last possible entry: the ticket desk shuts at 17.

The second day only holds together with the Gran Cono slot already booked for the 13:00–14:00 band. EAV bus 808 leaves Pompei Piazza Anfiteatro 11 times a day, between 8:30 and 16:30, and takes around 50 minutes: leave the excavations at 12:30 instead of 11:45 and you lose the bus and the slot. The €2.80 AC3 ticket has to be bought beforehand at a station or online, because on board the fare rises to €3.80. Every variant, the shuttle from Herculaneum included, is on the page for the Vesuvius day trip.

If the logistics of the second day look like too much — luggage, children, July heat — the Pompeii and Vesuvius tour with lunch settles the train, the bus, the guide and the slot in a single purchase, and puts you back in the centre in the afternoon.

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Booking to make on the evening of day one: none, if you bought everything in advance. If you did not, the Gran Cono is already sold out by then: switch the second day to Pompeii alone and add Herculaneum in the afternoon.

Three days: the sea fits too

With three days the right move is not another museum, it is a day at sea, placed last. That way, if the wind turns, you have two days of slack to reorganise instead of losing the trip.

The second day of this plan puts Pompeii and Herculaneum together, and it works because they sit on the same line: from Pompei Scavi station to Ercolano Scavi is a few minutes by train towards Naples, and the two tickets cost €20 and €16 on their respective official sites. Herculaneum asks for two hours, no more: the area is a quarter of Pompeii’s but the houses still have their upper floors, their charred window frames and their mosaics in place. The considered comparison between the two sites is on the page for the Herculaneum day trip.

The third day comes in two versions. The boat in the bay takes in the Posillipo coast and then Capri from the water, with a swimming stop: nine hours, leaving from Beverello. The alternative is the Amalfi Coast by minivan — Sorrento, Positano, Amalfi — which is a day of hairpin bends on the SS163 but puts you in three different villages.

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The choice depends on what you want to take home. The boat is for the sea and for photographs from below; the minivan is for the villages, the stairways and the ceramics. If you have already seen Capri, go to the coast; if this is your first time in the bay, take the boat. The practical detail is on the pages for the Capri day trip and the Amalfi Coast day trip.

Booking to make on the evening of day two: the sea trip, if you have not bought it already, and a look at the forecast. In a rough sea the boats stay in and the hydrofoils stop before the ferries: the plan B on land is the castles and the seafront plus the Certosa di San Martino, which for €6 gives you the best view in the city.

The 8-hour version: cruise day

The ships tie up at the Stazione Marittima, on the Molo Angioino, ten minutes on foot from piazza Municipio and twenty from Porta Nolana. With eight hours ashore — a realistic 8 o’clock disembarkation, back on board at 16:30 — there is one rule: one thing done properly, not three done at a run.

Pompeii option. You step off at 8, walk or take the Alibus to piazza Municipio and then on to Porta Nolana. Take the 8:41 train and you are at Pompei Scavi–Villa dei Misteri shortly after 9:15; with the named ticket already on your phone you are through Porta Marina at 9:25. That gives you four full hours on site. The return train is the one leaving Pompei Scavi at 13:41, reaching Porta Nolana at 14:14: from there you have two hours for the old centre or for a proper lunch before going back aboard. The next useful train leaves at 14:17 and arrives at 14:50, and that is your safety margin: do not go beyond it.

Vesuvius option. On public transport it does not stand up. You need a train plus bus 808 plus the climb to the crater plus the return, and the first 808 back down from the car park is at 9:35: the figures do not work with a ship that closes boarding at 16:30. If the crater is the reason for the trip, take a tour with a coach leaving from the port: getting back on time becomes the operator’s responsibility.

City option. MANN at the 9 o’clock opening for two hours, Sansevero at 11:45 with a slot, pizza at 13, the Napoli Sotterranea at 15 and back on board at 16:15. It is the densest day possible without running, and it depends on no train at all. The twenty-five things worth your time, with the minutes from Toledo, are on the page things to do in Naples.

The closures calendar, which sets the order

Before you fix the days, look at this table: it is the one thing you cannot negotiate.

The Galleria Borbonica opens only Friday to Sunday and on public holidays, with slots at 10, 12, 15 and 17: if you want the city’s third underground site, the weekend is not optional. The cloister of Santa Chiara closes at 17 Monday to Saturday and at 14 on Sunday, so it belongs in the morning or straight after lunch. The Duomo with the Tesoro di San Gennaro stops selling tickets at 17. Everything else slots in around those four constraints, and any plan that ignores them falls apart by early afternoon.

What to book, and in what order

The order matters because availability disappears at different speeds. The Gran Cono of Vesuvius opens sales 30 days ahead and the 10-minute bands hold 50 places: in August it goes in a few days. Pompeii has a cap of 20,000 entries a day and, in summer, bands of 15,000 places between 9 and 13 and 5,000 between 13 and 17:30: book the morning band, because at 14 in July there is no shade in the Forum. Cappella Sansevero admits at most nine people per guide. The Napoli Sotterranea leaves at fixed times from 10 to 18 and the ticket is neither refundable nor changeable.

What it costs, and whether you need a pass

On the three-day plan the entry bill runs like this: Pompei express €20, Herculaneum €16, MANN €20, Cappella Sansevero €12, Napoli Sotterranea €18, Galleria Borbonica €15, Gran Cono €11.68. That is €112.68 in all, plus €6.60 and €5.20 of Circumvesuviana and the city tickets.

The Artecard Campania 3 giorni at €41 covers two of those entries and the regional trains, so it is worth it if the two you choose are Pompeii and the MANN. But Sansevero, Santa Chiara and the Napoli Sotterranea stay outside every pass, and the Gran Cono cannot be entered with the Artecard: that is €41.68 you pay whatever happens. The full calculation, profile by profile, is on the page about tickets and passes; timetables, fares and last services are in getting around Naples.

A 2 or 3 day Naples itinerary works if you accept the rule of the constraint: book the three things with a slot, keep one long trip out per day, and put the sea at the end. The rest of the city lets you walk it with no plan at all, and that is the best part.