Chatting away with friends who’d just returned from a trip to Italy started me off comparing Pompeii, Heracleum and Ostia.  Pompeii and Heracleum were all buried by ash and Ostia silt.

Pompeii is, of course, the most famous. Heracleum is its poor cousin.  Ostia often doesn’t rate a mention but is perhaps the most impressive.

My favourite person and I think that one of the best things about going to Pompeii and Heracleum is that its best reached by the Circumvesuviana, the local railway that runs between Naples – Sorrento.  Catching the train at the Naples railway station is something to behold. It’s the local’s railway.  Each of the carriages is completely covered with graffiti.

The train is a chance to see how the locals live. In the afternoons it’s full of teenagers catching the train home from school. It’s boisterous and not understanding the language a little confronting. On the weekends’ its still chaotic but the trains are full of kids and families. Then there are the buskers – I use the term loosely. In our experience, the train buskers have been pretty ordinary but I am sure we have been unlucky.

Making sure your on the right train is the next step. Not just that you are on the right line but that it goes all the way. One day when we were travelling through to Sorrento, the train just stopped and then everyone except us got off. For a short while, we wondered what to do until a local realised we had no idea and told us that we needed to get off and catch the next train.

Pompeii has a dedicated station and for Heracleum, the train stops at the town and then there is a walk to the archeological site.Of course, you could hire a car or have a driver take you there but that means missing out on the train.

Once at Pompeii it’s past the tourist caravans and into the archeological site. It’s enormous and always busy. It’s also a dog sanctuary or was when we visited. We grabbed our map and on we went. We just wandered around to some extent aimlessly but I think Pompeii is an experience, rather than a deep dive. The scale ie enormous and for us just the thought of what it must have been like to be there when Vesuvius erupted.

What you quickly come to realise is that the best bits aren’t there, they are in Naples at the museum. The result is that you need not just to go to Pompeii but also the museum to get the full experience. Naples is a wonderful city so taking a day or two to see this wonderful earthy city and the museum is definitely worthwhile.

Heracleum is a more compact site and from my viewpoint much better than Pompeii. Starting at the top you work your way down to the water’s edge. We went on a Saturday morning, arriving at Heracleum station to a busy Saturday market. We wandered past the stalls and into the Archeological Park. It wasn’t busy meaning it was easy to see the points of interest that were sort of marked on the map you get with your entrance ticket. Because it’s more compact it’s easier to take in. As with Pompeii much of the contents of the buildings are also to be found at the museum in Naples,

 

Both are worth a visit. I’d have to say Heracleum is my favourite of the two but I don’t think either was as good as Ostia.

Ostia Antica is about an hour by train from Rome. Again it’s a domestic train, but not anywhere near as interesting as the Circumvesuviana. We allowed a day for Ostia and could easily have spent two days there. For Heracleum and Pompeii, we found a half day was more than adequate, with another half day for the museum in Naples.

Ostia Antica was the harbour city of the ancient Romans. Due to silting the sea is now some kilometres from the old harbour city. Walking around the enormous site today it’s easy to imagine how this thriving city operated. The restaurants and bars really aren’t that different from today. A paint job and a bit of furniture and it could be a pizzeria and bar.

Walking through the apartments it’s easy to imagine how the locals lived. The arena was the highlight for me. Not just because it’s been beautifully restored but because from the top you have a panoramic view of the site.

We had Pompeii on our list for our first visit to the Amalfi Coast. It was pretty special and at that stage, Heracleum wasn’t really on our radar. It was only when we decided to visit Naples on a second visit to the region that we decided to visit Heracleum. The hype makes Pompeii but I would suggest that Heracleum is easier to take in. I might have had a different view if more of Pompeii was in Pompeii and not in Naples.

That said the museum in Naples is truly a must see.

The challenge with Ostia Antica is that there is so much to see in Rome that it’s hard to justify a day out of Rome itself. It took us five visits to Rome before we finally got there. It shouldn’t have.