Pompeii with Kids, Day Two: A Private Tour Built for a 7- and 2-Year-Old

After yesterday's overnight flight and pizza class, day two started with the kind of travel lesson I actually wanted Remi to see up close. We left plenty of time to get to the train station and still managed enough mishaps that we ended up in a taxi anyway, missing the direct train that runs from Via Garibaldi station to Pompeii Scavi in just 30 minutes. I navigated us to a bus stop that turned out to be out of service instead of the metro, and when we finally reached the central station, the ticket machine wouldn't take a credit card. We talked to Remi in the taxi about going with the flow when a plan falls apart, and I'm hoping some of it sticks for next time.

The tour worth paying more for

We'd booked a LivTours Private Family Experience, a Pompeii tour built specifically for kids, and met our guide at 11am in front of Bar Sgambati on Via Villa dei Misteri, right next to the Pompeii Scavi train station. I'd expected a small group with a couple of other families in it, but it turned out to be just us. We paid more for the kid-friendly private version instead of a standard group ticket, and the moment I saw what the group tours looked like next to us, some with 40 or more people trailing a guide's raised umbrella through the same narrow streets, it was worth it for us.

Our guide, Annalisa, was excellent with the kids specifically. She aimed most of her commentary straight at Remi in kid-sized pieces instead of talking over her to the adults, which is its own skill and not every guide has it.

Walking into a city, not a museum

We came in through the Via Marina gate and up through what used to be market stalls, arriving at the big central square with an incredible view of Vesuvius sitting right there in the background. I hadn't expected how well preserved and how sprawling the whole city would feel, with streets you actually walk down and sidewalks, crosswalks, and fountains still standing exactly where they always were. The original paving stones are intact enough that you can see the grooves worn into them by cart wheels, which is the kind of detail that makes two thousand years suddenly feel close instead of abstract.

The plaster casts of Pompeii's victims stopped both of us for a minute, in a way none of the ruins around them did. Annalisa explained how they're made, plaster poured into the voids left in the hardened ash where a body had been, and Remi went quiet and just looked for a while.

What held their attention

Remi asked question after question and clearly loved it, and when I asked her favorite part afterward she landed on the ancient bathhouses, fully enclosed rooms that still have their vaulted ceilings, and the remains of a thermopolium, believed to be one of the oldest known fast food counters anywhere. Arlo, at two, needed something more physical, and Pompeii delivered there too. Dirt to dig in and rocks to climb on kept him moving the whole time we weren't standing in front of something too fragile to touch.

Trains, strollers, and where we ate

We rode the train back into the city that afternoon instead of taking another taxi, and it's worth building your day around from the start if you can manage it, unlike us. The direct line runs from Via Garibaldi station to Pompeii Scavi in about 30 minutes, and the ticket we bought back covered a full day of rides for around €4 a person.

We brought Arlo's stroller and did find stretches inside the site where we could push it, but we ended up carrying it for at least half the tour over the uneven stone. Looking back, I think he would have been fine without it, and I might have been more up for carrying him myself once the jet lag wears off a bit more. A carrier would work better than a stroller for a smaller kid, and I'd guess a kid three and up could just walk the whole thing.

There aren't any bathrooms or water stations once you're inside the ancient city, so stock up at the gate or the train station before you go in. Lunch options inside are just as thin, which is why we went back into the city and found 50 Kalò, a Michelin-recommended pizzeria in the Mergellina neighborhood that was worth the trek after a morning in the ruins.

How much we saw

Our loop took about two hours, which was the right length for the kids given it was still around 85°F and sunny for mid-September. By the time we finished I realized we'd covered maybe a third of the site, and I'd go back and push further toward the amphitheater and the theater district next time, on a cooler day so we have more stamina left to spend there. Annalisa filled two hours with just enough history to stick and just enough freedom for a two-year-old to dig in the dirt, and that balance is the whole trick to doing Pompeii with kids.