Husband and I (both in our early to late 70s) fly into Naples am on Oct 7th and have current itinerary as follows:
Oct 7th - Alibus to hotel near Naples train station. Maybe nap but go whenever we want in late afternoon via metro to Naples Archeology Museum (closed cause its Tuesday) and take Rick Steves (RS) audioguide walk, which starts at museum, for quick view of city.
Oct. 8 - circumvesuviana train to pompeii for 11:15 am Mondo tour. Continue train to Sorrento to hotel near train station.
Oct. 9 - 9 hr. Mondo tour of Amalfi coast
Oct. 10 - day of leisure for whatever. Maybe Capri (we arent beach people though)
Oct. 11 - circumvesuviana to Naples, metro to Naples archeology museum. Spend from 9 am- noonish there and metro back to train station where we take train to Rome.
This all worked fine to me until i tried to figure out if the 3 day Artecard would be a good deal. Since it covers transportation in Naples and Compania, it seemed logical to buy the card for starting on oct 7th to metro to museum area for our RS walk. It would then expire at end of day Thursday (and we dont need it that day cause we will be on all day mondo amalfi tour so we have wasted a day). We could use it for Admission to “Pompeii only” under the above itinerary Cause it will be expired by the time we want to use it for Naples archaeology museum On Saturday. So Im thinking of changing the itinerary to take full advantage of the two sites plus the metro, bus, and Circumvesuviana.
Would it be a horrible idea to do the 7th as above, the 8th for the Naples museum in the morning and then hitting pompeii that same day in the afternoon after 1 pm for Mondo tour or some other guide (how hot is it going to be in afternoon? I know its open sun all the way for probably what will be a 3-4 hr tour for us. Keep in mind we are from SW Florida and we know what stinking hot is). Mondo had assured us that their tour that starts at 11:15 am isnt hot that time of year, but are they just saying that?
Rest of itinerary could probably remain the same OR to avoid wasting the 3rd day of the artecard, we could possibly move the Mondo Amalfi coast tour to Friday, October 10 and then on Oct 9th use that day as a day where we could possibly take buses around the Amalfi coast area or take a ferry from Sorrento to Capri as I think the artecard covers buses and ferries, is that correct? Perhaps for that day you could suggest some towns along the Amalfi coast that we could take the bus to that the Mondo tour does not go to. The Mondo tour goes to Positano, Amalfi and Ravello, spending 1-2 hrs in each.
Im a little confused about the ease of using the artecard. Most of the posts in the travel forum seem to be quite old. Is the online app as difficult to use as most of the older posts seem to make it out to be or has it improved? I’m not quite sure how you are supposed to use the app for starting the artecard cause it sounds like you need their ap but they also talk about activating it at the first museum or first transportation station. Do you have to do both maybe? The three day artecard costs €41 and the admission to Pompeii is either 18 or €19 and the Naples archaeology museum is €20. if the artecard is easy to use for the transportation it seems like that would be the advantage of getting the artecard - mainly for the ease of transportation around in the area rather than to keep buying individual tickets. Can I buy and activate this artecard at the Naples airport when I arrive? I know that I cannot use the artecard to get from the airport to the train station.
Any advice would be much appreciated.