Volcanoes › Bay of Naples › Mount Vesuvius
Look into the crater in the morning, walk through the city it buried in the afternoon.
Photo: Sarahhoa · CC BY-SA 2.0
Both sites work with allocations: Vesuvius in 10-minute slots, Pompeii in two halves of the day during summer. The mountain is the bottleneck – so book the crater first and fit Pompeii around it.
Crater time slot at 9:00 or 9:30 am: clearest view, few groups. Head down to Pompeii around midday and enter with the afternoon allocation from 1:00 pm. Note: in summer that allocation has only 5,000 places – book ahead.
Pompeii at 9:00 am in the large morning allocation (15,000 places), bus 808 up the mountain at midday, crater slot from about 2:30 pm. From midday, haze often drifts into the crater; last entry is between 3:00 pm and 6:00 pm depending on the month.
The EAV public bus runs eleven times a day from Pompeii (Piazza Anfiteatro, Villa dei Misteri station, Porta Marina Inferiore) to the turnstile at 1,000 meters. The crater ticket is not included.
| Up from Pompeii | 8:30 am · 9:50 am · 10:30 am · 11:15 am · 12:15 pm · 1:00 pm · 1:30 pm · 2:00 pm · 2:45 pm · 3:30 pm · 4:30 pm |
| Down from Quota 1000 | 9:35 am · 11:00 am · 12:00 pm · 12:30 pm · 1:30 pm · 2:05 pm · 2:50 pm · 3:30 pm · 4:00 pm · 5:00 pm · 6:15 pm |
A named crater ticket, a named Pompeii ticket, a bus: if you would rather not put that together yourself, you can book it as a package. These tours are among the most booked anywhere on the bay.
Affiliate links to GetYourGuide: if you book, we earn a commission and the price stays the same. Prices and ratings as of 21 September 2026. If a weather warning of level orange or higher is issued, the crater stays closed – ask the operator what is planned instead.
Yes. The park allows up to two and a half hours for the crater, Pompeii needs at least half a day, and the bus ride adds 55 minutes. It will be a long, hot day – bring water and sturdy shoes.
Vesuvius first for the view, Pompeii first for the safer booking. Pompeii's morning allocation is three times the size of the afternoon one.
That is actually easier: the excavation and the Vesuvius shuttle both start at the same station, Ercolano Scavi, and Herculaneum has neither a visitor limit nor time slots.
Sources · accessed on 21 September 2026
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