The excavations of Pompeii

Getting there

Anyone sleeping at Camping Zeus is already in front of the entrance: Porta Marina is at the end of the same street, a few steps away. Coming from Naples, take the Circumvesuviana to Pompei Scavi-Villa dei Misteri, which is right next to it.

• There are three entrances. Porta Marina, in via Villa dei Misteri, is the one for those arriving from the Zeus or from Pompei Scavi-Villa dei Misteri station; piazza Esedra, a little below it, is the second, and the shuttles to the villas outside the walls leave from there; piazza Anfiteatro, on the other side of the ancient city, faces the modern town, the sanctuary and Pompei Santuario station
• By motorhome: leave the Naples-Salerno motorway at Pompei Ovest, which the Park calls Pompei Scavi. Pompeii has a restricted traffic zone for vehicles longer than seven metres: anyone over that length pays to enter, from November to February 40 euros a day for Euro 3 to 6 and 44 for older vehicles, at the check point in piazza Falcone e Borsellino or online on ztlpompei.it. Under seven metres it does not concern the motorhome
• Where to sleep: besides the Zeus, there is Camping Spartacus, at via Plinio 127, fifty metres from an entrance according to the operator, open all year, with a motorhome service point, and it gives you the permit for the restricted traffic zone for free. Its price list, with no year, gives for low season 5 euros per person, 8 for the motorhome, 5 for electricity, plus 3 euros per person of tourist tax. During the day the motorhome can be left in the two car parks of the Zeus's operator, at via Villa dei Misteri 3 and at via Provinciale Andolfi 8, the second outside the restricted traffic zone, but they do not publish the prices
• By train from Naples: the Circumvesuviana for Sorrento leaves from Porta Nolana and from Garibaldi and reaches Pompei Scavi-Villa dei Misteri in about forty minutes; a ride costs 3.30 euros per person

Practical information

The ticket is in your name: you buy it online on vivaticket.it, or at the ticket offices of the three entrances, at Porta Marina, piazza Esedra and piazza Anfiteatro, and at the entrance you show an ID document.

Contacts

Where it is

Pompei · Campania

You set off from

Notes

• Opening hours, read on 14 October 2026: from 15 October to 15 March the excavations are open from 9:00 to 17:00, with last entry at 15:30; the houses open at 9:15 and close at 16:20, with last access at 16:00. From 16 March to 14 October you can stay until 19:00, with last entry at 17:30. The Park is closed on 25 December and 1 January, except for special openings that it announces in December: on 1 January 2025 it had opened from 9:00 to 14:00
• Tickets until 31 December 2026: the Pompeii Express, 20 euros, is valid only for the city inside the walls; the Pompeii Plus, 25 euros, adds the Villa dei Misteri, the Villa di Diomede, the Villa Regina with the Boscoreale Antiquarium, and the shuttle; the Grande Pompei, 30 euros, is valid for three days and adds Oplontis and the villas of Stabiae. From 18 to 25, for citizens of the European Union, it costs 2 euros, and under 18 entry is free. With the Express you can add the Villa dei Misteri by paying 8 euros, by card only, at the Porta Ercolano gate. Audio guides cost 9 euros and are hired at the entrances in exchange for an ID document
• From 1 January 2027 the Park changes its price list: a single ticket at 25 euros for all the sites, valid for thirty days, with one entry to each site. Whether a cheaper ticket for the city alone will remain the announcement does not say, nor does it say that it includes Herculaneum, which is a different park: before leaving, check the "Orari e tariffe" page
• On the first Sundays of the month entry is free, with no ticket and no booking: you go straight to the turnstiles. In winter these are 1 November and 6 December 2026, 3 January, 7 February and 7 March 2027. The limit of twenty thousand still applies, and they are the most crowded days of the year. On 4 November 2025 entry was also free for the national holiday; for 2026 the Park has not said so yet
• What there is inside: the toilets are at the entrances, in the area of the theatres, at the Casina dell'Aquila, at the Antiquarium and at the Villa dei Misteri, and along the streets there are drinking water fountains. The only place to eat is the Casina dell'Aquila, with a self-service restaurant and kiosks, looking out on Vesuvius. Rucksacks and bags larger than 30 by 30 by 15 centimetres are not allowed in: they are left at the paid left-luggage, which is only at Porta Marina and piazza Anfiteatro. The map is free at the infopoints
• The Forum and the temples: from the Forum you see Vesuvius at the end. Around it stand the Basilica, the Temple of Jupiter, the Temple of Apollo, the Macellum, the market, and the Building of Eumachia. From the Forum starts via di Mercurio, with the Arch of Caligula
• The streets: via dell'Abbondanza, via Stabiana, via Consolare, with high pavements and stepping stones between the cart ruts, the shops and the thermopolia, with their counters and sunken jars
• The houses: the Casa dei Vettii, with its garden peristyle and the rooms painted with mythological pictures; the Casa del Fauno, the House of the Faun, with the copy of the Dancing Faun in the atrium; the Casa del Citarista, the House of the Lyre Player, one of the largest, opened on 24 June 2026, with its garden replanted with laurel; the Insula dei Casti Amanti, the Insula of the Chaste Lovers, visited on walkways above the excavation site, which in winter opens at 10:30. Some houses open only one day a week. The Casa di Paquio Proculo and the Odeion can now be seen only from outside, and the Casa della Nave Europa is closed
• The Palestra Grande and the casts: the palaestra is a large lawn with a portico around it; since 12 March 2026 it has housed the memorial of the casts, twenty-two bodies of the victims with the story of the eruption, a four-metre column of ash and lapilli, and the remains of plants and animals. Next to it is the Amphitheatre, from the first century BC, which held about twenty thousand people
• The theatres: the Teatro Grande, for about five thousand spectators, reopened on 14 October 2026; behind it is the quadriporticus
• The Villa dei Misteri stands outside the walls, beyond Porta Ercolano and the street of tombs, and no longer has an entrance from the road: you reach it from inside, with the Pompeii Plus or with the 8 euro supplement, and in winter the last entry from Porta Ercolano is at 15:30. In the triclinium, the Hall of the Mysteries, is the great red-ground frieze of the initiation of a woman into the mysteries of Dionysus. Since 15 January 2026 the eastern portico has been closed. Anyone who wants it together with the Amphitheatre has to choose which end to start from
• Current closures: the Fullonica di Stephanus until 21 October 2026, part of the Stabian Baths from 19 October, a stretch of via di Castricio and via di Nocera since 19 March 2026. Visits to the Regio IX excavation site, where the frescoes of the Casa del Tiaso came to light in 2024 and 2025, are suspended
• The shuttles to the sites outside are free: with the Plus the one to Boscoreale, with the Grande Pompei the one to Oplontis as well. In winter the shuttle to Boscoreale leaves from piazza Esedra at 9:30, 10:30, 11:30, 12:30, 14:00 and 15:00; the one to Oplontis at 9:30, 10:30, 11:30, 12:30, 14:15 and 15:15, but not on Tuesdays, when Oplontis and the villas of Stabiae are closed. For the villas of Stabiae the shuttle does not leave from Pompeii but from Castellammare di Stabia, opposite the Circumvesuviana station
• The sanctuary: in the modern town, next to piazza Anfiteatro, stands the Sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary of Pompeii
• Vesuvius and the Herculaneum excavations have their own pages. The EAV 808 bus to Vesuvius stops in via Villa dei Misteri, opposite the station

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