Pompei Comune Attractions

Pompei is a two-site town, and the sites have nothing to do with each other. The excavations are the reason almost everyone comes: 64 to 67 hectares of a Roman city stopped in AD 79, entered at Porta Marina, Piazza Esedra or Piazza Anfiteatro, and genuinely a half-day minimum. The Pontifical Shrine, a kilometre east, is a working basilica and the reason the modern town exists at all — and it is free.

Beyond them, the park's own ticket reaches further than most visitors realise: the suburban villas, Boscoreale, Oplontis and the Stabiae sites are run by the same authority and sold on combined tickets. Oplontis in particular — a villa with frescoes as good as anything inside the walls — takes a fraction of Pompeii's crowds.