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Comment by retSava | Hacker News Reader

Some travel sites recommends not visiting them both at the same day, since Pompeii is very large, and walking on cobble stone is exhausting.

This piqued my interest, have you been to both? Do you have any general advice or travel tips? Did you go up to the volcano peak, if so, do you think that would be doable also for a small-ish child (~6-8 yo)?

Thanks!

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So I was there about 5 months ago. I'll be honest, I'm in pretty good shape and even still, Pompeii is way too much to do in a day. Herculaneum is wonderful and very well preserved, but if you only had an afternoon you could see it with some ease. Were I to do it again I'd likely spend one day in Pompeii, one day in Herculaneum and on the slopes of Vesuvius, and at least a day in Napoli proper. That would get everything in any respect, but would let have a real sense of those couple sites.

I've been there in July, visited them both in the same day: Herculaneum in the morning and Pompeii the afternoon. Is impossible to visit everything in Pompeii only the afternoon, in fact we went only in the most famous places but we completely missed the most northern part. I think that in a full day is possible to visit a lot of it, but it depends how much you want to stop and listen to the audioguide (highly recommended). Herculaneum is fine visiting it in the morning, you can enter on each and every house, read the textbook that explain a lot about it, etc. A few advice: prepare yourself for a lot of walking under the sun, those places are really hot (especially in July). In Pompeii there aren't many places to rest in the shade since almost every house have no roof, but there are some fountains where you can fill a water bottle.

On another note you should really spend 2-3 days in Naples, a city which I found (unexpectedly) very interesting and fascinating.

Finally you should really make this card [0], it allows you to take every train, metro, bus, funicular railway, from Naples to Sorrento and allows you to enter for free in the first two cultural sites that you visit. So I recommend you to go first in the two Roman cities and save a few money that you can invest in good pizzas :).

[0]: https://www.campaniartecard.it/campania-3-days/?lang=en

Two months ago I took my 6 year old (who is raised in San Francisco therefore may be more accustomed to pedestrian life than, say, the US average) on the train from Naples to Pompeii at 10am, we spent about 4 hours at the site and caught the train back. She was tired at the end but liked it very much, and I was thinking I wanted to go back some time because there was a lot we didn't see.

I didn't expect the vastness and size of the site. Pretty great.

I was there in January. I regret not making the time to get to Herculaneum, as it sounds spectacular. Covering all the open parts of Pompeii in anything less than a full day would be infeasible, so I'm happy we allocated the whole day there. And yes, it's an exhausting site - fairly flat with gentle slopes, but stones & scale conspire. (I walked 16.5km that day.) I'd also suggest unless you're likely to return, rushing through such places means you miss much of the impact.

I've stayed in Sorento and done both on the same day. It's a lot of walking so you may end up carrying a 6 year old. It was also a full day trip. We left Sorento early and first went to Herculaneum, then Pompeii, and didn't get back until it was dark. Highly recommended.

Also keep in mind that the train (Sorento<->Naples) is rather (in)famous for pick pockets, though we didn't have any issues.

I did both in one day and it was very tiring (and I'm in my 20s). Herculaneum is small enough that anyone without mobility issues can do it, but Pompeii is quite large.

I also went to the volcano and the hike is about 3/4 of a mile and moderately steep. If your children are active they should be able to handle it, but the key is to wear shoes with good traction. Also they sell wine at the top, which is nice :)

I spent 6-8 hours in Pompeii and 4-5 hours in Herculaneum. If you chop down you can see Pompeii in 2-4 hours as well, but then you would miss out the immersion in ancient culture. So I wouldn't recommend visiting both at the same day.

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