The Gran Cono of Vesuvius

Getting there

The motorhome goes up to the car park at 800 metres and stops there: the last stretch, to the square at 1000 metres where the path begins, is done on the Comune's shuttle or on foot. Anyone sleeping at Camping Zeus in Pompeii can leave the motorhome where it is and go up by bus.

• The road: leave the Naples-Salerno motorway at Torre del Greco and follow the signs for "Vesuvio" along via De Nicola and via Vesuvio; at the roundabout at the end head towards Contrada Osservatorio and take provincial road 144 to the car park at 800 metres. The Park reckons a quarter of an hour from the exit
• You cannot drive above 800 metres: the Comune of Ercolano bans via Osservatorio, from the junction at 800 metres to the square at 1000 metres, to all vehicles except scheduled buses, hire vehicles with a driver, taxis and motorbikes. You cannot park at the square at 1000 metres
• The car park at 800 metres is the Comune's parking area B: motorhomes pay 21 euros, for a maximum of four hours, and the space is bought online on parkingsuvio.it, where you choose the day and the type of vehicle and enter the number plate. The Park advises buying it after the ticket for the path. You cannot stay overnight
• From 800 metres to the square there is the Comune's shuttle, one euro each way, about four minutes; on foot it is 1.8 kilometres of provincial road uphill, about half an hour
• Without the motorhome, from Pompeii: the EAV 808 bus stops in via Villa dei Misteri, opposite the Circumvesuviana station and a stone's throw from Camping Zeus, and reaches the square at 1000 metres in fifty minutes, with no shuttle. With the timetable in force from 1 October 2026 it leaves from there at 8:35, 9:55, 10:50, 11:35, 12:05, 13:05, 13:35, 14:05 and 14:35, every day; in winter the last useful one is the 14:05, which arrives at 14:55. It comes back from the square at 9:35, 11:00, 12:00, 12:40, 13:10, 14:00, 14:50, 15:30 and 16:50, and on the way back it does not pass by Villa dei Misteri but stops in via Plinio and in piazza Anfiteatro, in Pompeii
• From Ercolano Scavi, the Circumvesuviana station, taxis and private shuttles leave: Vesuvio Express gives 10 euros return and 20 with entry, but its website is old, and prices and winter times must be asked on the phone

Practical information

The ticket is sold only online, on vesuviopark.vivaticket.it, for one day and a ten-minute slot, up to thirty days ahead. The guides are included.

Contacts

Where it is

Ercolano · Campania

You set off from

Notes

• Opening hours, read on 14 October 2026: from November to February the path is open from 9:00 to 15:00, in March and October until 16:00, from April to June and in September until 17:00, in July and August until 18:00. The closing time is the last entry, and the visit must end within an hour: in winter you can go in until 15:00 and must be down by 16:00, so anyone going in at the last moment has one hour and not two. Whether the path is open on 25 December and 1 January the Park does not say: ask at the info point
• The ticket: the Park's page gives 11.68 euros full price and 9.55 reduced, presale fees included; the reduced ticket is for residents of the thirteen municipalities of the Park and for those under 25. There are no free Sundays and there is no ticket office. Besides the tickets sold in advance, half an hour before each slot ten last minute tickets are released, which can be bought only by connecting to the wifi at the entrance, and since 11 April 2026 they are in the holder's name: ID documents are checked at the entrance
• When it closes: the ticket office and the path stay closed automatically on days of orange or red weather alert from the Campania Civil Protection, and this happened on 25 November 2025, 14 February 2026 and from 8 to 10 October 2026. They also close when the Comune of Ercolano closes the road above 800 metres for snow and ice: on 23 November 2025, from 8 to 10 January 2026, on 31 March 2026, and on those days the 808 bus stops lower down. The ticket for a closed slot is refunded automatically to the card. On the day itself you find out from the Alert section of the Park's website and from the info point
• In winter: at the square at 1000 metres there are no toilets today, and the Park says so; go to the toilet before going up. On cold and wind the Park only recommends checking the weather and wearing suitable shoes: up there you are at more than a thousand metres, the path is exposed, and a windproof jacket is useful even when it is mild in Naples
• The climb: from the square you see the northern side of Monte Somma, with the Cognoli and Punta Nasone, and between the two volcanoes the Valle del Gigante, the Valley of the Giant, which to the west is called Atrio del Cavallo. The path is a wide track in hairpin bends over the 1944 lava; at 1118 metres, at the Casetta, the visit with the guides begins, then a series of viewpoints over the crater up to the Capannuccia, at 1170 metres, which is the end point. The highest part of the rim is walked only by scientists
• The crater is an ellipse up to 580 metres wide, with walls in layers of lava and ash and a floor of debris; the steam of the fumaroles comes out of the inner walls. Among the rocks in winter you can see the black redstart
• The view: the whole of Naples along the gulf, the Campanian plain as far as Circeo on clear days, and on the other side the coast towards Sorrento and Capri
• The Osservatorio Vesuviano, at via Osservatorio 14, on the road up, dates from 1841: Ferdinand II of Bourbon had it built, and here in 1856 Luigi Palmieri built the first electromagnetic seismograph. Today it is a museum of the INGV, free, from Monday to Friday and only by booking by email at museo.ov@ingv.it, for groups of ten to twenty-five people; it is closed at weekends
• The Park's other paths, such as the Valle dell'Inferno, the Riserva Tirone, the Strada Matrone and the Fiume di Lava, are eleven in all, and some cannot be walked: the Park warns that the network is being upgraded
• The date of 79 is debated: the letter of Pliny the Younger gives 24 August, but the fruit, the braziers, a coin and a charcoal inscription found in the excavations suggest autumn. The great eruption of 16 December 1631 is the one that Naples remembers with San Gennaro
• Pompeii and Herculaneum have their own pages. With the 808 bus the climb up Vesuvius fits into the same day as the Pompeii excavations, giving up part of the city: go up on the first bus, and the 12:00 one goes back to piazza Anfiteatro, which is an entrance to the excavations, in time for the afternoon slot

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