Italy with Kids - Pompeii (new)

05 Oct 2008


First a taxi to the train station, where I again made the mistake of not agreeing a price before we left. I've found taxi transport very disheartening in Italy - any drivers who don't use their meters create a level of mistrust in Italians.
Once at the train station, we had the simple task of checking the departures board for our train. Yep, platform (binario) 1PG. Only there was no 1 in sight, and what does PG stand for? Finally by enquiring at the ticket office we were directed downstairs, to platforms 2 and 3, then by asking again we found platform 1 which was not signposted. The train had already left.

So instead we hopped on a different train heading to Pompeii, and although I'm sure the guidebooks mentioned this it didn't sink in at the time: there are two separate train companies
operating the routes to the south, and Pompeii itself has three train stations, two on separate Trenitalia lines and one on the Circumvesuviana line (which we needed). So we ended up at the wrong end of town and had to take another taxi to our campground. This was exascerbated by one of the suitacases' wheels breaking off, leaving me dragging it along the footpath and getting a few curious looks...

Thankfully despite us being there early, the room was ready quickly and we moved in.

Being a little tired from the ferry and then lugging cases around on the trains, we took it easy. One lengthy walk into the modern town of Pompeii resulted in us finding a supermarket, lolly shop, a "Baby Land" area with lots of toddler's rides, and a restaurant for dinner. We had to push our way upstream against a flood of people exiting the central church. Figure there must have been an important sermon that day.

Dinner was nice: we ate at the "Empire" Restaurant, which has a dancefloor/clubhouse adjacent to it that the kids romped around in for a little while. Ordering was a little confusing, because the proprietor, who informed us later that he had opened an Italian takeaway in Covent Garden, didn't seem to understand that I wanted to look at the menu. He thought we were there for the "Turistice" set meals. As it turned out, we did have the set meals.

Later that afternoon I purchased two "Arte cards", which work very like the Roma pass, providing free public transport for 3 days, two free site entries, and discounts on others. (We used the free entries to get into the Pompeii Scavi (ruins), and the Capodimonte Museum on Monday and Tuesday).

A side note on public transport for children: some places they let the kids ride free without asking, like Rome, others they check if Australia is part of the European arrangement for free museum access and transport for children (it isn't although some museums let them in free). We had to pay for the kids to take the trains to and from Naples
and Pozzuoli.

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