Pompeii February 2026
We travelled down to Dublin to catch our Ryanair flight to Naples. The flight is between 3 and 3 1/2 hours. As predicted it wasn't very comfortable. We just chose random seat selection and Lorraine was in the row in front of John.
We landed in Naples to be greeted with nice sunshine, something we hadn’t seen in Northern Ireland for some weeks if not months.
We caught the Alibus from the airport to the train station in Naples and from there a regional train to Pompeii. The last leg of the journey was a 20 min walk to our apartment.
John had located the apartment on Booking.com. All the communication was via whats app.
Maria asked us what we wanted for breakfast. Each morning what can only be described as a feast was left on a trolley just outside our room.
It was self check in and all done via whats app. We got to meet Maria at check out. Nice girl, good english.
The apartment was very clean and fresh with a small private balcony. Just across from us was a restaurant that was still open. A young Chinese girl, with good english served us. We had Pizza and a portion of french fries. We were very tired and after we had eaten, we headed straight to bed.
The following day, Saturday we decided that we should explore and headed to Sorrento via the same regional train. When we arrived a Sorrento, Lorraine spotted a hop on hop of bus, for just 10 euro’s each. However it wasn't like a city hop on hop off this was around the Almafi coast. The road was an adventure and hats off to the driver. No way would you like to take a motor home here, anyway they are not allowed at certain times of the day. We got talking to a young girl from London, she and her partner got off the bus at Positano. But we didn’t think that we could get down to the bottom. How would we would ever get back up to the road again. It was so steep. We opted to stay on the bus. When we arrived at Almafi, It was much more doable, down at sea level. We walked to the town square and had a lovely lemon yogurt ice-cream in the old square.
We wondered how much it was to go on a boat tour. €10 each to Positano. That sounded great so off we went. Oh by the way everything is cash only. We had a lovely journey to Positano. Took some nice photos, but to our surprise everyone got of???. We stayed on and the guy asked if we had a ticket which of course we didn’t. Where do you get on we asked. Almafi the answer, oh dear. Any way we were not for getting off that was for sure. How would we get back? Lets play the dum tourist on this one. The girl who sold us the tickets never mentioned a return ticket, or even that it was the last boat of the day. Soon another guy arrived and said we could pay him. Luckily we had €20 cash left. We noticed when we got off the boat that he went up to the office, probably to get our tickets.
In hindsight sight it would have been nice to get off the bus at Positano, work our way down to the water and get the boat to Amalfi. Would we have had time to do that, it would have been risky, as this was the last boat of the day. Hind sight is a wonderful thing.
We observed a lovely sunset as we motored back to Almafi harbour.
John, made a bad wardrobe decision. Clad in shorts and T shirt, it became obvious not the best attire for a boat journey. It was not as warm a day as the forecast suggested. Wearing a fleece at least, would have been a better move.
We then got the hop on hop off bus back to Sorento station and then the train back to Pompeii. John made a mistake with the train stop and we got of a stop late. So we got the next train back to Pompeii. The twenty min walk to the apartment was welcome after sitting on the bus then train and it was a lovely evening for a walk. We finished of the food that was left over from breakfast and went to bed. The breakfast Maria provided each day really saved us a lot of money on food we would have otherwise had to pay.
Sunday, we had a tour booked to see the ruins. It wasn’t until 13:30 so we had some time to kill. We went out from the apartment and turned right. And wow a whole new place opened up. Entrance to the ruins was free on Sunday, this seemed to bring a lot of people into the area.
We decided not to go to far, but explore more after the tour. The entrance and the tour meeting point was just opposite the train station. So we walked back the now familiar path. We were walking along and all of a sudden John tripped and automatically, instinctively, almost casually, went into his now famous commando roll. Turns out a big chunk of paving was missing. With only a few scratches we were able to continue, but it could have been a whole lot worse. It all happened in an instant, thank you God for watching over us.
We arrived at the meeting place early and sat in a little tavern just across the road and people watched for a while. We then went to the entrance to join the tour. It was worth every penny. We were given Bluetooth ear pieces and could hear the guide perfectly. She was very knowledgeable and clear to understand.
After the walk we found a seat and demolished the remains of our breakfast.
We made our way back to the apartment and had a wee rest. Also checking in to our flight home with Ryanair. This time we ended up seated, much further apart.
Later we decided to go for a stroll. The place was buzzing with people. Lorraine spotted a McDonalds which we must have walked past this morning. We had a meal between us. Lorraine enjoying the frys, John the burger.
The main square had an impressive bell tower , which we heard that morning at 7:00 hrs. And the church was spectacular inside. There was a service in full flight, and seemed to be very well attended.
Ice cream was calling, and we got two yogurt cones to sit and enjoy, but they weren’t as good as yesterdays at Almafi.
It was a lovely evening and a great atmosphere.
Monday morning, the plan was to get up and get ready, check out and head for the Airport. (We had to pay €18 tourist tax in cash). This necessitated, a short walk to the train station, a train to Naples Garibaldi station then Alibus to the airport. We would be far to early but we didn’t really fancy Naples. Just too big to try and find anywhere.
The airport layout wasn’t entirely clear at first, but we sussed it out. We had to go through passport control, including the new electronic entry/exit procedure.
With time to kill, Lorraine caught up on call the midwife, via surf shark and BBC Iplayer and John watched some youtube. We made a mistake going through passport control to early, as the lounge wasn’t as comfortable.
The flight back to Dublin was on time. Uncomfortable as expected. Otherwise uneventful. Lorraine was seated in 35D and John 14C.
Conclusion:
It was a good decision to go in February, less busy and better temperature.
You loose two full days travelling. 5 days would be better. Three at the location.
Ask more questions, along the lines off, is this a return ticket, when is the last boat back.
