Parking safely in Pompeii??
 

We are traveling from FCO in the morning to Sorrento in Sept. and planning on stopping to explore Pompeii on the way during the day.

I have been given very severe warnings about leaving cars parked with luggage inside due to the risk of break-ins and theft in Pompeii in particular.

My friend went so far as to book a night at a hotel that had indoor parking just to use the parking lot. She never actually spending a night in the room.

Are there any other options? Are any of the parking lots monitored?

Your friend was smart. Parking at or near tourist sites with anything inside the car is an invitation to theft. You are better off going to your hotel, checking in and leaving your belongings there and backtracking to Pompeii. If it is too early to check in and if the hotel is a good one, check your bags and then go back. Pompeii is a magical place to walk through and experience. Worrying about your belongings will not help the experience.

I cannot personally say if there is secure parking nearby but the parking at the site, while fine for leaving a car, would not be a place I would leave anything in while visiting.

Adding to what JMN57 wrote. After leaving your car at the hotel, you could take the Circumvesuviana train to get to Pompei scavi (and back), a 30 minutes ride, eliminating the need to get into the hot car after having had it standing in the parking lot under the sun for the whole day...

^

It's not Pompeii. As in NYC or Chicago, your pretty safe if things are locked in your trunk, and nothing is visible in your car. No hatchbacks, etc. I've spent about a third of the time in Italy since 2010. I've only had my car broken into twice. Once back in NYC when a friend offered me a ride to the airport in his hatchback. I got out to say goodbye to some friends while he was supposed to wait. Instead, he went to the Times Square area to sightsee, and left the hatchback with my belongings in plain sight. All of my bags were stolen. And he had parked in sight of the doormen of a luxury hotel.

The second time was in Providence, Rhode Island. I stopped to grab a Starbucks, and left a CD case on the floor that only held about ten CDs. Ten minutes later I came back to a broken window, a partially ripped out CD player, and ten classical CD's thrown all over the place. I've never had my car broken into in Italy. I spend most of my time in Venice with no car, but have spent a lot of time elsewhere including Naples, Rome (where I am now), and in other places.

I learned in the USA not to leave anything in view in your car. Put it in the trunk or glove compartment, and you'll almost certainly be safe. Overall, Italy is much safer than the USA unless you offer yourself up as a potential victim of a crime of opportunity.

Seriously?
This makes for a good tale tonight.

Hatchbacks are certainly an open invitation as the goods are in plain sight. But I will caution that even putting things into a trunk is not a safe bet. In the mid-80's, I was driving a rental BMW 318 and had parked it not far from Termini in Rome (very pre-ZTL days) on a nice street with lots of foot traffic. I returned to find the trunk popped. There was nothing in it but somebody popped it to see.

If I need to park a car on a street when I am in transit between hotels, I always find a place to check luggage. As I said earlier, I find it much easier to enjoy what I am doing if I am not worrying about something else.

In my opinion it's too much to worry about. Termini puts you where petty crime is most likely to happen, just as it is near the train station of most big cities. Even then, robberies are more likely to happen around the Port Authority in NYC, or almost anywhere in New Orleans, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas, etc, than anywhere in Italy. And in those US cities they'd probably not just pop the trunk but would take the whole BMW.

It may be more upsetting to lose your stuff in a foreign country. Still, from my point of view, it's easier to enjoy myself when traveling if I don't carry along a lot of misperceptions about the risk of crime.

Perception of risk is highly individual, but is generally not rational. You're more likely to lose your stuff because the airline lost it. Rome is safer than London, Madrid, Barcelona, Glasgow, etc. Last year in Paris the staff at the Louvre went on strike because the place was so overrun by pickpockets.

Having the trunk popped on a luxury car in Rome 30 years ago, a one time event that could happen anywhere, shouldn't lead to travel paranoia in people traveling to Pompeii and forcing them to rent hotels rooms just for their luggage, or spending hours in a packed, non-air conditioned local train in order to double- back from their destination hotel in Sorrento.

Thank you for bringing a rational point of view back to this discussion. I was beginning to worry about the folks on here. Travel, enjoy life, don't be paranoid about your luggage.

Agreed. And, specifically for Pompeii, they do have left luggage, which people report being safe which would be an option. But, in any case I would never leave anything in my car that I wouldn't want to be without.

In the case of Pompeii, they don't particularly care if you bring in a reasonably-sized day bag. You should be able to pack most of your stuff in the car trunk before you begin your drive to Pompeii, and pack all the important stuff into a backpack to take into the ruins with you.

I agree with you in almost everything you wrote with one exception: Unless there are unforeseen problems, the Circumvesuviana takes 25 minutes from Sorrento to Pompei Scavi (and not hours), it won't cost much more than what one pays for a parking at Pompei and, finally, it leaves you right outside the entrance while, depending on the time one gets there, one has to add the walk from the parking to the entrance to the few hours of walking around inside the archeological area (and the Villa dei Misteri). Moreover, it takes away all worries about a possible (and, I agree, improbable) loss of property.

I should have been more clear about my meaning. I was referring to the additional time it would take to go to Sorrento and double-back to Pompeii, which I think would be a few hours.

If you add in the time it takes to walk from the hotel to the train station, then to wait on the platform for the train for who knows how long in the September heat, then get on a local, hot, non-air conditioned train that is often packed with people, by the time they get to Pompeii, they will have spent an hour, not just the 25 minute train departure and arrival time. Then they have to reverse that process of going to the train station, waiting, then getting on a roasting train full of sweaty people. By the time the person gets back to their hotel from their train journey, it would probably cumulatively add up to two hours. More if the trains aren't on time.

If they don't have unnecessary paranoia about crime in Italy and just stop in Pompeii on the way to Sorrento, they'd be half way through their sightseeing by the time they could get there by double-backing by train. Then they can drive leisurely onward to their hotel in their comfortable, air-conditioned car. It's so much less exhausting.

Having just experienced the circumvesuviana, I can't echo what Perche just said enough. It's not Frecciarossa, Amtrak, or even Septa regional rail. It's a train locals commute on, similar to a NYC Subway but above ground, with no Air Conditioning. Can vary from get a seat when you get on (leaving Sorrento this morning, Sunday, when few locals were heading to work) to people packed in like cordwood (stood the whole hour and 7 minutes down from Naples) Not bad temperature wise today, but the ride down was a 4 euro 10 experience akin to a Navajo sweat lodge. Add in backtracking, and being hotter in September, and it's not going to be pleasant.

If you read Rick Steves, you would think the circumvesuviana runs from Sing-Sing to Riker's Island. The characterization is unfair, IMO, but like touring anywhere, you need to pay attention to your surroundings.

Don't know if this is any help, but we parked here in April. Not only was it free, but it's also right next to the police station.



https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/...d18a72aeb414a4

That is a public (i.e. municipal) parking lot; unless you get there very early in the morning, the chance of finding a spot is rather small. Moreover, this is a "blue zone", which means that you have a limited time of free parking that is certainly not enough to visit Pompei (60 minutes?). Given the fact that it is next to the police station, a ticket is almost unavoidable.

Unrelated to Pompei: I remember back in '89: I parked, overnight, right in front of the police station at Baccoli (other end of the Naples bay. When I went to pick the car the next day, it had been opened and a (cheap) straw hat was missing! Talking about thieves' fearing the police. ;)