Not only Pompeii & Herculaneum..... Oplontis and Boscoreale

Norwich, United...
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Not only Pompeii & Herculaneum..... Oplontis and Boscoreale
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When spending €20 on a combined Pompeii/Herculaneum ticket, don't forget that the price also includes entrance to three smaller sites - amongst them....

Popea's Villa at Oplontis..

http://www.pbase.com/isolaverde/popea

The Antiquarium and Villa Regina at Boscoreale, where there's currently a small display of human and animal body casts...

http://www.pbase.com/isolaverde/boscoreale

From Pompeiisites.org...

Access to 5 sites: Herculaneum, Pompeii, Oplontis, Stabiae, Boscoreale) - valid for 3 days

Full price: € 20.00 Half price : € 10.00 (*)

Free of charge: for EU citizens under 18 or over 65 years old.

(*) Reductions: for EU citizens aged 18-24 and EU permanent school teachers.

Reductions and free tickets can be issued only by showing a valid document (passport, identity card, driving license).

Peter

Osaka, Japan
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1. Re: Not only Pompeii & Herculaneum..... Oplontis and Boscoreale
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Readin TimeOut Naples (which just arrived today), I came across this re the 100-m walk from the train station to visit Oplontis:

"This is a depressed area, avoid visits in the early afternoon when the streets are deserted"

Unfortunately early afternoon is our best time of day, since we almost never make it out of the hotel until at least 11 am and sometimes closer to noon. Fortunately, I think Pompeii and Heculaneum will satisfy us for in the archeological ruins department, but I might have considered Oplontis on the same day as Herculaneum if time permitted.

I usually discount most TA posts about unsafe-feeling neighborhoods, since there are many differences in perception, but when a travel guide says to avoid a 100-m walk from the train station to a major tourist site in broad daylight, I start to take notice. Almost enough to send me back to planning Cinque Terre rather than Campania.

Naples, Italy
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2. Re: Not only Pompeii & Herculaneum..... Oplontis and Boscoreale
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if not traveling in Campania not know what you're missing....

Cinque Terre are not comparable to the Amalfi Coast (the best)

Naples, Italy
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3. Re: Not only Pompeii & Herculaneum..... Oplontis and Boscoreale
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second thing:

Boscoreale museum is very nice but it is difficult to reach by public transport (infrequent)

third thing:

if you can not miss the archaeological park of Baia and the Piscina Mirabilis

Osaka, Japan
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4. Re: Not only Pompeii & Herculaneum..... Oplontis and Boscoreale
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I did say <<almost>> We certainly have not given up on Campania yet, although I must say that even with my new guide book, I'm still very much in the dark on planning day trips from Sorrento to the AC. Still, plenty of time; not much sense gathering specific info now as the summer season is beginning, since everything will be different next April.

One thing though, we're almost positive we are going to fly into Rome and spend the night and then take the train down the next day rather than fly into Naples, since our arrival in Naples would be 9 PM, and I think it best not to arrive after dark on our first visit. This is generally true for any destination, but maybe more so for Naples.

Norwich, United...
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5. Re: Not only Pompeii & Herculaneum..... Oplontis and Boscoreale
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Page 239, do you mean?

I'm not sure where, but we had found a warning of that sort (it's actually a fairly recent addition to TO's coverage; we have two earlier editions that both say "The site is close to the CV railway... making a visit to the area relatively swift, painless and rewarding") prior to our mid-morning visit, back in September 2002.

As a result we'd arrived with a pretty good idea of the route from the station, and were happily on our way, only to then have a succession of people stop us in the street and to proffer directions to the site!

(There are however three stations in Torre Annuziata, and I've only seen two of them. It's just possible, I suppose, that the third is located in a less pleasant area than the others?)

And as for our trip to Boscoreale last week... one of the station staff went to great lengths to make sure we understood the path to follow from the newly-opened station there, which involved a heavily signposted walk of a little over a mile.

As we'd bought daylong Unicocampania tickets we decided to take the bus back and - bless - were offered a lift to Pompei by one of the residents of the estate in which the site's set, after we'd been waiting a while - although (as he came over to point out to us, when he came back again and found us still there) we were too foolish to accept. When the bus did finally arrive, the driver was kind enough to divert off to drop us a little closer to the station - and then had to do a huge U-turn in the road to get back to his proper route.

It's experiences like those that make me mad when ignorant TA members write so badly of the people of Naples and its surroundings!

Peter

Naples, Italy
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6. Re: Not only Pompeii & Herculaneum..... Oplontis and Boscoreale
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Peter thanks

but an advantage because you're speaking Italian well

Edited: 10 years ago
Osaka, Japan
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7. Re: Not only Pompeii & Herculaneum..... Oplontis and Boscoreale
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I cannot remember the exact quote and do not have time to look it up (I'm supposed to be working), but remember hearing something to the effect that one kind act can erase a dozen sins. But the thing is, if you're on the receiving end, or even potentially on the receiving end, one nasty encounter will most definitely erase hundreds of kindnesses.

St Paul, MN
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8. Re: Not only Pompeii & Herculaneum..... Oplontis and Boscoreale
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"if you can not miss the archaeological park of Baia and the Piscina Mirabilis"

I myself thought about going to these two places but ti did not look that easy by public transport. I addition I had read that the caretaker for Piscina Mirablis has quirky hours and one could show up and no one might be around to to let you in.

The Bay of Naples has a lot of great ruins and sites that people might want to see, but often there is no good transprot to these places and not good info how to get there period. We went to Pozzuoli in Feb 2006 to go on the Archeobus to see Cumae and Lake Avernus, and other sites described by Virgil to find that it had been shut down 2 years previously. They gave us directions at the tourist office to get to Cumae by bus, but in following theri directions we were unable to find the bus stop for the bus going to Cumae. We ended up goign back to Naples mid-afternoon only getting as far as Pozzuoli. Since it was a weekday, we were not even able to see Terra Rione in Pozzuoli.

St Paul, MN
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9. Re: Not only Pompeii & Herculaneum..... Oplontis and Boscoreale
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"Readin TimeOut Naples (which just arrived today), I came across this re the 100-m walk from the train station to visit Oplontis:

"This is a depressed area, avoid visits in the early afternoon when the streets are deserted"

I have read the same thing about Ercolano. We went to Oplontis in feb 2007 fron the Torre Annunziata Circumvesuvian stop. Becasue it was Feb it was not that lively in the streets. both Torre Annunziata and Ercolano are not pristine Sorrento-like tourist resorts, but neither of the are the depressed looking ghettos (at least my verson of ghetto). There was NOT piles of trash, rows of burnt out, abandoned buidings, hordes of drug addicts and pushers in the streets, hordes of super-aggressive beggars and vendors, or weird men staring at you or your daughter. I been to Ercolano more than once and Torre Annunziatia once. We ate brunch in Ercolano before going inside Herculaneum;requried walking aroudn Ercolano. We (2 women) were not hassled, hurt or robbed in either place. We left both place in late afternoon to take the train back to our lodging; we walked througfh town to the train stop. The worst thing we encountered was a group of boys in Ercolano having a egg fight. They concentrated on each other and did not bother us.

Edited: 10 years ago
Woodbridge, United...
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10. Re: Not only Pompeii & Herculaneum..... Oplontis and Boscoreale
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Oplontis-

We visited this after going to Vesuvius and finding we had some time on our hands. We had seen no guide books before going as had not planned it, and I think we arrived around 3-3.30pm (at the nearest Circumvesuviana stop - Torre Annunziata, only one stop from Pompeii). Oplontis is very easy to find and well signposted from the station. The area does look a little run down but at no time did we feel unsafe or threatened, though there weren't many people around at that time. It's definitely worth going, we almost had the place to ourselves so it made a pleasant change from the crowds at Pompeii and Herculaneum!

Boscoreale -

Peter - we attempted to go to Boscoreale - on another day when we had a bit of time left! - we had 3 days free travel you see so made the most of it! - we took the Circumvesuviana to Boscoreale station and followed the signposts. We had stupidly assumed it wouldn't be far(!). After walking for about 20 mins (and we like walking!) and not coming across it we decided to turn back as it was a hot day and we were probably running out of time. We did wonder why the man in the ticket office at the station kept mentioning bus to us when we tried to get directions to walk it! For future reference is it quicker to get to from elsewhere or were we "nearly there?" I'm sure the plan that you get given at Pompeii and Hecrulaneum said to go to Boscoreale station, although I understand there is a bus from Pompeii?

Never mind, sometimes it's good just to go with the flow and see what happens - came off with Oplontis, not Boscoreale, maybe next time!

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