Rome to Pompeii: New and direct high-speed train to open

A new and direct high-speed train from Rome to Pompeii is expected to open in 2024. The current route was a true adventure:

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The current route from Italy’s capital to the archeological park of Pompeii is long and somewhat complicated. To arrive by train, you need to first go to the city of Naples, where you change onto a tortuous if scenic regional service called the Circumvesuviana.

The journey involves stops in several small towns around the Gulf of Naples before chugging into the station of Pompeii Scavi-Villa dei Misteri some two hours later.

 

https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/04/05/visiting-pompeii-will-be-easier-thanks-to-a-new-high-speed-train-line-from-rome

The trip from Rome can be a challenge as documented by these two goofballs:

I think the existing inland Rome to Salerno track goes by the backside of Vesuvius/Pompeii, and continues to Paestum, maybe changing to a local train that stops perhaps a mile stroll from Paestum. So it has always been semi-useable, but eventually will have convenient station/hub and an express schedule. Some of my travel nightmares were taking the alternative coastal train route Naples to Pompeii/Sorrento in rush hours, and mystery bus from Salerno to Paestum.

So in future you might stay on the morning train when mobs from Rome step off to jam Pompeii museum turnstiles, and ride onward to bucolic Paestum and it's temples among meadows of wildflowers amidst only  scattered schoolkid groups. Train back to Pompeii in early afternoon, when it actually empties of tour groups towards sunset hours which might be as late as 8 or 9pm in summer.

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At the end of 2021, Pompeii’s authorities introduced a bus service that links Pompeii to surrounding archeological sites.

Of course you are spoiled with must-see stuff nearby, like Herculaneum, Isle of Capri, Positano, Pozzuoli, and various villas which are far from the inland train route. Probably it will pause in Naples if you want to see sculptures cherry picked from Pompeii in their museum, or else hydrofoil over to Capri.