Naples Airport to the Centre, and the Train to Pompeii Scavi

Two legs, two ticket systems

Naples splits this journey into two purchases that do not overlap, and travellers routinely lose money assuming otherwise. The Alibus ticket is a single-ride product for one specific shuttle route, valid 90 minutes from validation, and it does not carry you onward on EAV rail. The Circumvesuviana fare is a separate regional title priced by distance band. Budget for both.

Piazza Garibaldi is where the two legs meet, because the EAV lines have their own station there beneath the national rail terminus, so the practical shape of the day is: bus or taxi to Piazza Garibaldi, then a train south. If you are going straight to Pompeii on arrival, that still means changing modes, paying twice, and carrying your luggage through a busy station.

The one thing that does span operators is contactless. EAV's Tap&Go page lists the system as active on its Napoli-Sorrento, Cumana, Circumflegrea and Piscinola-Aversa rail lines as well as ANM Metro lines 1 and 6 and four funicular stations, charging the most convenient fare for the day's travel automatically. You tap the same card in and out at the gates; fail to tap out and you are charged the maximum fare.

Alibus from Capodichino

The Alibus is an ANM city bus, not an airport shuttle company, and that is why its ticket sits inside the regional fare system. UnicoCampania prices the Unico Alibus title at EUR 5.00 from authorised resellers or on board, valid for one ride and for 90 minutes from first validation, on the route between the airport, Stazione Centrale and Piazza Municipio. You can also simply tap a contactless card on board in TAP IN mode, using American Express, PagoBancomat, Mastercard, Maestro, Visa or VPay.

Departures run every 20 minutes, every day. From the airport, UnicoCampania gives 06:30 to 23:40 Monday to Friday and 06:30 to 23:50 on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays; in the other direction, from Piazza Municipio, 06:00 to 00:15 on weekdays and 06:00 to 00:00 at weekends (checked 15 September 2026). Land after the last departure and the bus is not an option.

Journey times on the airport's own bus page are given as roughly 15 minutes to the Central Station and roughly 35 minutes to the port, with the buses using the dedicated port road system to avoid general traffic. Those are the operator's figures for a normal run, not a guarantee at rush hour.

The fixed taxi tariff

Naples taxi fares from the airport are set by municipal resolution, not by the driver, and you have to ask for the fixed rate at the start of the ride. The tariff schedule published by the Comune di Napoli under Delibera G.C. n. 258 of 27 June 2024 and distributed through the airport lists EUR 21.00 from the airport to the Centro Direzionale, Gianturco, Stazione Centrale or Piazza Garibaldi, EUR 24.00 to the port, Molo Beverello or Piazza Municipio, EUR 28.50 to the Via Partenope hotel district in San Ferdinando, and EUR 21.00 to the ZTL of the historic centre.

Those predetermined fares are per vehicle and already include the radio-call, night, public-holiday, luggage, animal and airport supplements. They exclude motorway tolls and the EUR 5.00 minivan supplement that applies to parties of more than four. The same schedule sets one-way fixed fares out of the province: EUR 70.00 to Pompei scavi, EUR 65.00 to the Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio and EUR 125.00 to Sorrento.

Which Pompeii station you need

Pompeii has three entrances and three different railway answers, and picking the wrong one costs you a walk across town. The Archaeological Park of Pompeii's access page is explicit: Porta Marina and Piazza Esedra are served by the Circumvesuviana Napoli-Sorrento line at the stop it calls Pompei Villa dei Misteri, Piazza Anfiteatro is served by the Circumvesuviana Napoli-Poggiomarino line at Pompei Santuario, and the Trenitalia Napoli-Salerno line stops at a station simply called Pompei.

The distinction matters because the names are close and the operators are different. EAV's live departure boards render the first one as POMPEI SCAVI VILLA DEI MISTERI on line L1 and the second as POMPEI SANTUARIO on line L4 (checked 15 September 2026). The Trenitalia station is not within the park's walls at all: the park describes the Pompei Link as a combined train-plus-bus service that connects Pompeii station to the archaeological park in about 15 minutes.

Both EAV lines start at Napoli Porta Nolana and call at Napoli Piazza Garibaldi, which is the interchange most arriving travellers use because it sits under the main national rail station. Porta Nolana is the origin terminus, so boarding there is where you have the best chance of a seat.

Buying and validating an EAV ticket

UnicoCampania's own fare finder gives the Napoli-Pompei relation as EUR 3.30 for a single ride and EUR 4.10 for the integrated hourly ticket. The Trova Tariffa tool describes the single ride as valid for one journey on one vehicle of one operator within the fixed distance band, and the EUR 4.10 integrated title as valid 140 minutes from first validation (checked 15 September 2026). Read the integrated ticket's small print carefully: in extraurban use it allows one movement from the origin comune to the destination comune, and only one trip on each rail mode, so it is not an unlimited 140-minute pass.

EAV sells tickets at its Piazza Garibaldi and Montesanto ticket offices, through the GoEav app, and through the Punto LIS network of tobacconists and retailers, which its ticketing page puts at 3,745 points across Campania. Validate before you travel, not after you board.

One option that existed until recently does not now. EAV's own page states that the Campania Express service, the air-conditioned reserved-seat train that ran eight daily journeys on the Napoli-Sorrento line calling at Pompei Villa dei Misteri, is suspended from 1 October 2026 until further notice, with refunds available through the complaints form for tickets already bought for later dates. Plan on an ordinary Circumvesuviana train.

Luggage and step-free access

Luggage is the constraint that reshapes this whole itinerary, and it bites at the destination rather than on the train. The Archaeological Park of Pompeii states that only small bags of a maximum 30 by 30 by 15 cm are permitted, which rules out taking a suitcase through the gate. If you are moving between cities with your bags on a Pompeii day, solve storage before you arrive, not at the entrance.

Step-free access at Pompei Scavi-Villa dei Misteri is genuinely limited in one direction. EAV's accessibility instructions state that the station has no boarding ramp for Naples-bound trains and that, from 17 December 2025, a wheelchair user needing a train towards Naples must instead take a Sorrento-bound train and change at the new Stabia Scavi station; arriving from Sorrento, you cannot alight at Pompei and must continue to Villa Regina, use the lift to the opposite platform and return.

Timing the visit around the train

Pompeii's closing time, not the train timetable, is what usually goes wrong. The park's timetables page gives summer hours from 16 March to 14 October as 09:00 to 19:00 with last entry at 17:30, and winter hours from 15 October to 15 March as 09:00 to 17:00 with last entry at 15:30, closed on 25 December and 1 January. In the summer season the park also applies admission slots with a maximum of 15,000 visitors between 09:00 and 13:00 and 5,000 between 13:00 and 17:30, against a daily cap of 20,000 and named tickets.

A winter arrival changes the maths sharply. With last admission at 15:30 and daylight going early, an afternoon flight into Capodichino leaves no usable visit that day, and the honest plan is to go into Naples, sleep, and take a morning train.

What this guide does not cover

This guide stops at the two legs it names: airport to central Naples, and central Naples to the Pompeii excavations by rail. It does not cover the private coach operators that run from the P Bus stop beside the P1 car park to the Sorrento coast and the Amalfi Coast, which sell their own tickets outside the regional fare system, nor the ferries from Molo Beverello, nor onward travel to Herculaneum, Oplontis or Vesuvius beyond the fares noted above.

Fares and timetables here were read on the operators' own pages on 15 September 2026, and Campania's regional fare schedule changes by resolution rather than on a fixed annual cycle. Before you travel, confirm the current Napoli-Pompei fare on UnicoCampania's fare finder and the current Alibus first and last departures, since both are the kind of number that moves without notice.