Rome to Pompeii

Rome to Pompeii - 155 miles

We've noticed that our planned time away is getting short and there's still a lot we want to do and see so decided that we'd drive from Rome to Naples and Pompeii in one day, using the autostrada rather than having a break on the coast somewhere. So an earlyish start on Tuesday (15^th May) saw us heading round the manic Rome ring road until we picked up the A1 Florence/Rome/Naples road, pausing for fuel once we were clear of Rome. The overall toll was around €20 which wasn't expensive for the distance and time saved.

It had rained quite heavily during the night in Rome, so much so that a couple of pitches on the site were waterlogged, thankfully with nobody on them. Although our day started dry we endured several heavy downpours (well it gives the van a wash!) one of which was when we paused for lunch on a service area.

We had decided to go to Pompeii and had selected an ACSI site, purely on the grounds it boasted of being less than 100m from the entrance to the ruins; there were a couple of others which turned out to be almost next door, but we stuck with our choice. Our arrival coincided with a torrential downpour which left the roads well flooded and the traffic chaotic, yes more than normal! The site proved to be quite small but the young receptionist, Pascale, guided us to a pitch sufficiently large to park us together. It appears that during the day they use the empty pitches for visitor parking for the ruins and it seems to work out – as visitors leave motorhomes arrive and vice-versa.

A n hour or so chat over a cuppa before an early night. Subject to weather we'll “do” the Pompei ruins tomorrow then maybe visit Naples by train, it apparently only being 15 mins. We also considered Sorrento by train but that's over 45 mins; we'll think about it.