Close to Naples around Mount Vesuvius there are several ancient ruins like Herculaneum, Stabiae, Oplontis and of course Pompeii. While the first were not known to me before, i heard a lot about Pompeii and decided to see lefts of this ancient place, that had been covered by a 6m thigh layer of ash for hundreds of years. Keeping this in mind, you will find great interest, being suprised how far civilisation was already at that early age. 

How to get here:

You can very easily come by Bus or Train from Naples, which costs around 2€ only and takes around 30min by Train from Garibaldi Station. 

What to do:

Scavi di Pomepii: A day ticket to Scavi di Pompeii will regulary cost you 11€, when there are exhibitions it can be a bit more. Furthermore you can skip the line by taking a tour with some of the local guides. If you do not like grouping, you can also purchase an Audio Guide for 6€. I did non of the last two, but had printed a map of the city before and checked which spots are most important to see.
While it looks rather small from outside, the town which population was estimated to 11.000 is indeed quite big. The day i went it was around 35°c and after wandering around in this town, i had a crust of dust allover my body.

There are so many roads and houses for each profession, after i while i had to say everything looked the same. I entered at the eastern side (scavi di Pompeii and made my way up to the north western part. Below named are the most interesting ones i passed (history lovers might hate me for being ignorant, but it was very, very hot that day)

Temple of Apollo: Entering from the East the first impressive Building you will see is the Temple of Apollo. While many parts of the city are really for me just rocks and stones, this one shows still a lot of features from ancient times. Surrounded by collums, you can easily imagine the big yard to be center of a religious temple. If you compare the actual site to animated reconstructions, it is very easy to picture and suprisingly preserved after so many years.

Forum and Temple of Jupiter: Very close to the Temple of Apollo you will find another huge yard, that was a gathering spot and also home to the Temple of Jupiter, which is also well preserved. You can access all the main roads from this spot and at the sides you will find ancient ceramics and even preserved bodies to look at.

House of the Faun: This is one of the biggest and most impressive private homes in the city. Here you can actually see several pieces of Art like the dancing Faun and travel back to roman luxurious times. In total the House covers 3000 square meters and occupies a whole city block, which makes it quite impressive. Today the gardens are really nice to visit, being replanted of course.

Grand Theatre: This greek styled theatre was built into a natural hill and sat around 4.000 people. Here you can experience the great audio construction. During my stay a local guide gave a singing performance, which could still be heard clear at the top rows.

Amphitheatre: The biggest Building of the city, and oldest surviving roman theatre is comparable to the Kollosseum in Rome. This huge piece of ancient architecture is lying north-west of the city, a bit seperated, next to the Palace of Pompeii. If you stand in the center, you can easily dive into the ancient cult of gladiators. fighting to death in a huge crowd of people.