Circumvesuviana

Three stations on the line from Naples to Sorrento are called Scavi: excavations. The trains stop at Ercolano Scavi for Herculaneum, at Torre Annunziata for the great villa at Oplontis, at Villa Regina for the farmhouse at Boscoreale, at Pompei Scavi for Pompeii and at Stabia Scavi for the villas of Stabiae, all of them buried by Vesuvius in AD 79. The three parts of the World Heritage Site, Pompeii, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata, are stops on a single suburban railway.

The Circumvesuviana was not built for them. It opened in 1890 to carry the people of the towns round the volcano into Naples, and it still does: it is a narrow-gauge network of six lines and 142 kilometres. The line along the coast reached the excavations at Pompeii in 1934 and was tunnelled through the mountains to Sorrento in 1948. The town above Herculaneum has taken the ruins' name as well: until 1969 it was called Resina.

Riding it, it is a city train that keeps going: the suburbs of Naples, Vesuvius on the inland side, then long tunnels, a viaduct at Seiano and the towns of the Sorrento peninsula. A train leaves each end every half hour, and the whole run takes an hour and a quarter.

The trains for Sorrento start at Napoli Porta Nolana, the Circumvesuviana's terminus in Naples, and call three minutes later at Napoli Garibaldi. Every train on the line is a direttissimo, a limited-stop service, so the run through the suburbs is quick: San Giorgio a Cremano, Portici and Ercolano Scavi, for Herculaneum, eighteen minutes out. Torre del Greco follows, then Torre Annunziata, where the line to Poggiomarino parts company, and the Sorrento trains go on past Oplontis and Villa Regina to Pompei Scavi–Villa dei Misteri, 39 minutes from Naples and the stop for the Porta Marina entrance to the excavations.

Beyond Castellammare di Stabia, the mountains of the Sorrento peninsula come down to the sea, and the line's builders, working from 1944 to 1948, had to tunnel. A tunnel of nearly four kilometres takes the trains to Vico Equense; at Seiano they cross a viaduct with the station built on it, then enter a straight tunnel of about 1,800 metres to Meta. Piano and Sant'Agnello follow, and the line ends at Sorrento, an hour and a quarter from Naples.

The trains

The line runs on 950 mm narrow gauge at 1,500 volts. Three generations of train share it. The oldest are the red-and-grey articulated units of the ETR 001–118 series, built at Pozzuoli and Genoa between 1971 and 1988, three bodies on four bogies, many of them since refurbished. The Metrostar units of 2008–2015 were designed for city traffic, with six doors a side and fewer seats. The newest are the Stadler ETR 300, built in Spain for this network: 56 are on order, the first entered service in July 2026, and ten of them work the timetable from October 2026.

A train leaves every half hour, daily, from each end of the line: from Napoli Porta Nolana on the hour and half hour from 05:30 to 22:00, and from Sorrento at the same times. That is 34 trains each way, all limited-stop direttissimi. The run takes 1 hour 15 minutes; Ercolano Scavi is 18 minutes from Porta Nolana and Pompei Scavi 39.

Naples to Sorrento

Sorrento to Naples

Every train also calls at Napoli Garibaldi, three minutes from Porta Nolana, and at San Giorgio a Cremano, Portici Bellavista, Torre del Greco, Torre Annunziata, Villa Regina, Pioppaino, Stabia Scavi, Seiano, Meta, Piano and Sant'Agnello.

Times valid from 17 October 2026, from EAV's timetable for line L1 Napoli–Sorrento (opens in a new tab).

The Circumvesuviana sells ordinary EAV tickets, priced by distance: a single from Naples to Sorrento costs €4.60. Buy at the station ticket offices, in EAV's GoEav app, or skip the ticket altogether: the gates on the Naples–Sorrento line take contactless bank cards (Tap&Go). Tap in at the gates and tap out at the end with the same card, and the system charges the cheapest fare for the day's journeys; forget to tap out and you pay the maximum fare.

For journeys that also use buses or the Naples metro, the regional UnicoCampania tickets cover several companies at once. Fares as of October 2026.

Interrail and Eurail do not cover the Circumvesuviana. Their table of Italian railways lists it by name among the trains not covered by the pass. The pass does cover Trenitalia's regional trains, including the main line from Naples towards Salerno, which stops at Pompei station; from there the Pompei Link train-and-bus service reaches the excavations in about fifteen minutes.

For this line, a pass is not worth buying: the whole run to Sorrento costs €4.60, and a contactless card at the gates works out the cheapest fare for the day on its own.

Checked October 2026 against Interrail's table of railway companies (opens in a new tab) and the Archaeological Park of Pompeii (opens in a new tab).

Most of what draws visitors to this line is a short walk or a bus ride from one of its stations: the buried towns and villas between Naples and Castellammare, the volcano that buried them, and Sorrento at the end of the line.

Naples has the widest choice of places to stay. Sorrento, at the end of the line, makes a quieter base for the excavations, with a train to Pompeii every half hour.

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