Thanks for any suggestions or advise.
We would really like to take a day trip from Rome on our own to Pompeii. We considered booking a guided tour but thought we might enjoy the adventure.
Bad or good idea?
Train? Bus?
Will we be able to purchase tickets to sites if need be on the fly when we arrive or should we commit and book ahead of Time?
Recommended tours?
Thanks
When I was there - I noticed that they are a lot of guides at the front gate offering tours. We were on an RS tour - so we had one ......I don't know how good the guides are, but bet you could find reviews on Tripadvisor.com and get info on how to contact some of them.... and their prices.
It is a very interesting place.
You might want to look at responses in this very recent thread on a similar subject + some alternative suggestions:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/rome-to-pompeii-amalfi-day-trip
You can easily get there on your own, but I would recommend a guide when you get there. The site is so big that it can be easy to miss something without a guide. I went without a guide and thoroughly enjoyed it-but I spent much time wandering around trying to find the things on my map, and then wondering what things were. You can purchase tickets for Pompeii when you get there. To take the train you would need to take a train from Rome to Naples and then take the Circumvesuviana to the site.
Go there on your own. It's faster.
High Speed Train from Roma Termini to Napoli Centrale (70 min journey)
www.trenitalia.com
Then Circumvesuviana commuter train from Napoli Centrale (P. Garibaldi) to Pompei-Villa dei Misteri station (about 45 min).
www.eavsrl.it
Once at the archeological site, hire a local guide, if you don't want to rely on guidebooks and maps on your own. There are plenty of guides at the entrance, they are all licensed and certified, I presume most are good, although I have nobody in particular to recommend.
Guides at the entrance gate, 12-15 per person. Up to 30 in a group, but you'll get much more out of the site.
They also do private tours, but I believe you have to pre book
Edit: this may help.
http://www.pompeitickets.com/mobile/en/ticket/1/private-touristic-guide
We did Pompeii with the RS audio guide--free
It does not cover every square inch, but found it informative and inclusive enough to cover all that was really necessary.
I had no sense of missing out on anything by not hiring a guide. As I recall any place that a hired guide stopped with a group of people, our RS audio guide went there as well ---- maybe just in a different order
Train would be the way to go and we just went to the entrance and paid the admission.
We just showed up at the gate after a short ride on the Circumvesuviana. There were guides everywhere inquiring if we needed their services. We opted to just go it alone. We had our book with us and chose to just meander through the place.
Actually - Ostia Antica is much closer to Rome, easier to get to and is better preserved. Maybe you would like to consider it:
http://www.ostia-antica.org/
