Pompeii and Vesuvius in one day from Naples: the numbers first
Pompeii and Vesuvius in one day from Naples, done on your own, cost €43.88 per person and ten or eleven hours. With the From Naples: Pompeii and Vesuvius Day Trip with Lunch you start at €48.75, which is under five euros more, with coach, entries and lunch included: partner prices are checked regularly. It is one of the few combinations in Campania where the package costs about the same as the single tickets.
The reason sits in one line of a timetable. The public link between Pompei and the crater is the EAV bus on line 808, which runs eleven times a day. Miss one and you wait from half an hour to an hour and a half, and with the Gran Cono slot already paid for the day starts to crack. People who go independently do it for control over their own pace, not to save money.
The day, hour by hour
Meeting point in central Naples; the exact spot is on your voucher
Coach towards Ercolano and up the provincial road to the quota 1000 car park
Automatic gate on path no. 5, groups of twenty with a Presidio guide
Back down and transfer to Pompeii, around 40 minutes
Lunch: included in the pizza and hot-buffet versions
Into Pompeii with the guide: Forum, Terme Stabiane, Via dell’Abbondanza
End of the guided visit, back to the coach
Return to Naples, normally to the same point you left from
And this is the same day by train and scheduled bus, built on the real timetables of the 808 and the Circumvesuviana.
Do-it-yourself variant
Porta Nolana: NA3 at €3.30 and two AC3 tickets at €2.80 for bus 808, buy it all now
Train towards Sorrento; Pompei Scavi–Villa dei Misteri at 8:37
Porta Marina: three hours in the excavations, from the Forum to the Casa del Fauno and down Via dell’Abbondanza
Out at Piazza Anfiteatro, which is also the terminus of bus 808
Bus 808 from Piazza Anfiteatro (Villa dei Misteri 12:20): 55 minutes of climbing
Quota 1000: crater slot at 13:30, though the gate accepts you from two hours before to two hours after
Path no. 5: 4,010 metres there and back, top height 1,175 m, about two hours
Bus 808 down from quota 1000: stops on via Plinio, Piazza Anfiteatro terminus at 16:25
Pompei Scavi: train to Naples, Porta Nolana at 17:18
Getting there: two services, one connection
The first leg is EAV’s Circumvesuviana towards Sorrento from Napoli Porta Nolana or Piazza Garibaldi to Pompei Scavi–Villa dei Misteri: 32 to 38 minutes, on a Unico Campania NA3 at €3.30 each way. The useful morning departures are 7:24, 8:05, 8:41 and 9:13; coming back from Pompei there are trains until 22:40. The Campania Express, the tourist train with guaranteed seats, is currently suspended until further notice.
The second leg is EAV bus 808. Terminus at Pompei Piazza Anfiteatro, then Villa dei Misteri and Piazza Porta Marina inferiore, then the climb with stops at Torre del Greco, the Osservatorio and the junction for the quota 750 chairlift, up to the quota 1000 car park in Ercolano. It takes around 55 minutes. Departures from Piazza Anfiteatro are at 8:30, 9:50, 10:30, 11:15, 12:15, 13:00, 13:30, 14:00, 14:45, 15:30 and 16:30; descents from quota 1000 are at 9:35, 11:00, 12:00, 12:30, 13:30, 14:05, 14:50, 15:30, 16:00, 17:00 and 18:15.
There is a small trick with the bus ticket that is worth €4 for two people: on board the Pompei/Vesuvio fare is €3.80 each way, but an AC3 bought in advance at a station, an agent or online costs €2.80. Buy two the moment you reach Porta Nolana, because there is no ticket seller at quota 1000.
What the day costs
By public transport
- Circumvesuviana Porta Nolana–Pompei Scavi, returnunicocampania.it
- €6.60 · NA3 €3.30 each way
- Pompei express ticketpompeiisites.org
- €20 full · €2 EU citizens aged 18–24
- EAV bus 808 Pompei–Vesuvius, returnunicocampania.it
- €5.60 with two AC3 tickets at €2.80 bought in advance · €7.60 on board (€3.80 each way)
- Gran Cono of Vesuvius, online ticketparconazionaledelvesuvio.it
- €11.68 full · €9.55 under 25 and residents
- Total per person
- €43.88 · 10–11 hours door to door
With a tour
The tour with lunch starts at €48.75: under five euros more than doing it yourself, with coach, entries and lunch inside. On this combination the package almost always wins, because the bottleneck is not the price but bus 808 and its eleven runs a day.
One last note on transport: the GoEAV app gives you the real state of the line, and you need it, because fifteen minutes of delay on the Circumvesuviana shifts everything after it. The 808, on the other hand, is not tracked at all: at the Piazza Anfiteatro terminus you wait and watch the clock.
Lunch, which on this trip is a genuine problem
At Pompeii the ticket covers one entry and there is no going out and back in, so eating inside the excavations means carrying a sandwich with you. At the quota 1000 car park there are concession kiosks along the path rather than anything like a canteen, and the prices are those of a place with no competition. On the independent plan the real window for food is the fifteen minutes between leaving Piazza Anfiteatro and boarding the bus: buy something on via Plinio in the morning, before you go in. On tours the lunch stop is what separates the packages, and it is also why they cost twice as much when a proper pizzeria is involved.
How much time to give each of the two
The realistic split is three hours at Pompeii and four at the crater, bus up and down included.
At Pompeii, with three hours, you cover the essential route: the Forum with the Temple of Apollo and the Basilica, Terme Stabiane, Casa del Fauno, the Lupanare, then Via dell’Abbondanza as far as the Anfiteatro, which is also where you need to come out for the bus. You give up the Antiquarium and the outlying houses: if you want those, Pompeii deserves a day of its own and there is a page on a Pompeii day trip.
On Vesuvius, path no. 5 is 4,010 metres there and back, reaches 1,175 metres and the park’s own rules put it at two and a half hours, graded easy: a steady gradient on ash and lapilli, with no exposed sections. Being accompanied by the guides of the Presidio Permanente Vulcano Vesuvio is compulsory and groups are twenty strong, three groups every ten minutes. The high route along the crater rim is off limits, and the full loop to the Rifugio Imbò is currently impassable because of safety work. Closed shoes: flip-flops on lapilli are a real problem, and at the quota 1000 car park there is no parking and, for the time being, no public toilet.
Who should pick what
The crater slot: how not to get it wrong
This is the part that wrecks improvised days out. The Gran Cono ticket is sold online only, on vesuviopark.vivaticket.it, the sole authorised seller: €11.68 full and €9.55 reduced for under-25s and residents of the park’s thirteen municipalities, free under 6. Fifty tickets go on sale every ten minutes, thirty days ahead. If the band you need has sold out, there are last-minute tickets: ten per band, released thirty minutes beforehand, named, and buyable only from the wifi at the car park, with a maximum of five per email address. That is not a plan B to build a day on.
Official information · Parco Archeologico di Pompei
- Pompeii, entrances
- Porta Marina, Piazza Esedra and Piazza Anfiteatro; the bus for Vesuvius leaves from Piazza Anfiteatro
- Pompeii, hours
- 9–19, last entry 17:30 (16 March–14 October); 9–17, last entry 15:30 (15 October–15 March)
- Pompeii, official price
- Pompei express €20 · Pompei+ €25 · €2 EU citizens aged 18–24; named ticket
- Gran Cono, access hours
- 9–15 (January, February, November, December) · 9–16 (March, October) · 9–17 (April–June, September) · 9–18 (July, August)
- Gran Cono, official price
- €11.68 full and €9.55 reduced, only on vesuviopark.vivaticket.it
- Official sites
- pompeiisites.org · parconazionaledelvesuvio.it
From the official website: double-check before you go.
The rule that matters is the flexibility of the gate: with a standard ticket you can go in from two hours before to two hours after the printed time, always within that month’s last admission. With a last-minute ticket the margin collapses to thirty minutes before and fifteen after. So if you do Pompeii in the morning, book the slot between 13:30 and 14:30: that window covers both the 12:15 bus and the 13:30 one, and forgives a late Circumvesuviana. Watch out for the short months: from November to February access closes at 15, so the 13:30 bus is the last useful one and the 16:30 is no use at all.
On the weather the rule is clear and in your favour: with an orange alert or above from the regional Protezione Civile, ticket office and path close automatically, and tickets for the affected slots are refunded without a claim within sixty days. For the bands next to the closure you request the refund by email within thirty days. Tours instead follow the platform’s policy: nearly all are free to cancel up to 24 hours before, and when the crater is shut they often swap in Herculaneum.
Same product, platforms compared
Prices refreshed from the GetYourGuide, Tiqets and Headout feeds.
| Platform | Price | Rating | Duration | Cancellation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GetYourGuideFrom Naples: Pompeii and Vesuvius Day Trip with Lunch | €48.75 Lowest price | ★ 4.8 (9,062) | 3 h | Free | Book on GetYourGuide |
| GetYourGuideExclusive Pompeii & Vesuvius Tour with Lunch from Naples | €88 | ★ 4.7 (3,508) | 8 h | Free | Book on GetYourGuide |
| GetYourGuideNaples or Sorrento: Full-Day Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius Tour | €92 | ★ 4.7 (4,995) | 8 h | Free | Book on GetYourGuide |
| TiqetsPompeii & Mount Vesuvius: Guided Tour From Naples | €115 | ★ 4.5 (484) | — | — | Book on Tiqets |
If the guide is of no use to you and you only want transport with the entries already inside, this is the comparison.
Same product, platforms compared
Prices refreshed from the GetYourGuide, Tiqets and Headout feeds.
| Platform | Price | Rating | Duration | Cancellation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GetYourGuideFrom Naples: Pompeii and Vesuvius Shuttle w/ Priority Ticket | €51 Lowest price | ★ 4.8 (89) | 7 h | Free | Book on GetYourGuide |
| TiqetsPompeii & Mount Vesuvius: Skip The Line Ticket + Roundtrip from Naples | €96 | ★ 4.2 (113) | 06:00 | — | Book on Tiqets |
Variations and combinations
Pompeii-then-Vesuvius is not the only order. Three alternatives hold up.
| Variation | Time | When it makes sense |
|---|---|---|
| Herculaneum + Vesuvius on the Vesuvio Express shuttle | 6–7 hours | If you drop Pompeii: the shuttle from Ercolano Scavi costs from €12 return and climbs in 30 minutes. Details on the page about Vesuvius in a day |
| Vesuvius in the morning, Pompeii in the afternoon | 11 hours | Only with a car or a driver: on public transport the first 808 leaves from Pompei, so you cannot get up there earlier |
| Pompeii and Herculaneum, Vesuvius another day | 8 hours | If archaeology interests you more than the volcano: two opposite sites, explained on Herculaneum in a day |
If you are still deciding which excursion to do first, the comparison of times, costs and transport for every destination is on the day trips page; for trains, buses and passes there is getting around Naples.
Which package to choose, if you go for a tour
Four very different formats circulate on this same combination, and the price alone does not tell you which one you need.
- Day trip with lunch from €48.75 — the best seller and the cheapest: coach, entries and lunch. It is the benchmark to measure everything else against.
- Pompeii and Vesuvius tour with lunch included from €86 — seven and a half hours, smaller groups, a properly structured food stop.
- Exclusive tour with lunch from €88 — eight hours, small-group format: what you pay for is the guide and the pace, not the transport.
- Full-day Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius tour from €92 — eight hours, with departures from Sorrento too: useful if you are not sleeping in Naples.
There is only one question to ask yourself: do you need a guide at Pompeii, or is transport enough? If transport is enough, the shuttle with priority ticket from €51 does the same job as the coach and leaves you free inside the excavations.
The local operators who sell the combination
This is the trip worked by the largest number of small operators around the volcano, because a minivan is exactly what solves a double transfer. We have profiled VESUVIOPOMPEITOUR, which was built on this very pairing, Around Vesuvio, specialists in the crater and the park’s other paths, plus Pompeii Grand Tour and Private Tours of Pompeii on the private side with a driver. Before you pay a deposit, ask four things in writing: whether the Gran Cono ticket is included and which time band it is issued for, whether the guide is licensed by the Regione Campania, whether the price is per person or per vehicle, and what happens if the path closes on a weather alert. The exact meeting point is on your voucher.
In short
Pompeii and Vesuvius in one day from Naples works on two conditions: the crater slot booked between 13:30 and 14:30, and the AC3 tickets for bus 808 already in your pocket. On your own you spend €43.88 and manage the eleven kilometres on foot yourself; with a tour you spend from €48.75 and hand the timing over to whoever is driving the coach. If you only have one day, it is the second option that gets you back to Naples having seen both.
Questions people ask
Can you see Pompeii and Vesuvius in one day?
Yes, but with a single margin for error. It takes ten or eleven hours door to door and around eleven kilometres on foot between the excavations and the crater path. The constraint is the EAV 808 bus, which links Pompei to the quota 1000 car park eleven times a day.
How much does it cost to do Pompeii and Vesuvius on your own?
€43.88 per person: €6.60 for the Circumvesuviana return, €20 for the Pompei express ticket, €5.60 on bus 808 with two AC3 tickets bought in advance and €11.68 for the Gran Cono online. A tour with lunch starts at €48.75.
How do you get from Pompeii to Vesuvius?
On the EAV bus on line 808, which leaves from the Piazza Anfiteatro terminus and also stops at Villa dei Misteri and Piazza Porta Marina inferiore before climbing to the quota 1000 car park. The ride takes around 55 minutes. The ticket costs €3.80 each way on board, or €2.80 if you buy an AC3 beforehand.
What time should you book the crater slot for?
Between 13:30 and 14:30 if you do Pompeii in the morning. The automatic gate accepts a full-price ticket from two hours before to two hours after the printed time, so a slot in that window covers both the 12:15 bus and the 13:30 one.
Is it better to do Pompeii or Vesuvius first?
On public transport, Pompeii first: the first 808 run leaves Piazza Anfiteatro at 8:30 and it is worth using right after the excavations open. On a tour coach the order is almost always reversed, because visibility from the crater is better in the morning.
What happens if it rains or it is windy?
Path no. 5 and the ticket office close automatically on days when the regional Protezione Civile issues a weather alert from orange level upwards, and tickets for the affected slots are refunded without a claim. Pompeii stays open, but wet ancient paving is slippery.
Is bus 808 enough for the trip back in the evening?
Yes, but only just. The last descent from quota 1000 is at 18:15 and reaches Piazza Anfiteatro at 19:10; the one before goes at 17. Miss the 17 run without a car and the alternative is a taxi or a private driver from the car park.
Is Vesuvius included in the Campania Artecard?
No. Artecard states explicitly that the passes do not give access to the Gran Cono, and that the EAV Pompei–Vesuvius bus has a special fare excluded from the transport included. The crater ticket is always bought separately.
Official sources
Read next
- PompeiiPompeii from Naples: €26.60 on your own or a tour from €45.50. Train, time bands, named ticket and the hour-by-hour plan. Check availability.
- VesuviusVesuvius from Naples: €28.88 on your own or a shuttle with entry from €39. Three routes, hours month by month, online slot only. Check availability.
- HerculaneumHerculaneum in half a day: 20-minute train, €16 ticket, 4 hours door to door. The table for choosing Pompeii or Herculaneum, and the tours worth it.
- Day tripsEvery day trip from Naples compared: how long it takes, how you get there, what it costs on your own and with a tour. Pick one in two minutes.
- Getting aroundMetro, Circumvesuviana, ferries, Alibus and high-speed rail: lines, stations, minutes, fares and last useful services. Check tickets and transfers.