Italy plans to open a high-speed rail link between Rome and the ancient city of Pompeii, aiming to boost tourism to the archaeological site and other locations along one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline of Italy.
The €35 million development includes the creation of a new train station and transport hub adjacent to the archaeological site of Pompeii, the ancient ancient city that was preserved during a volcanic eruption in AD 79 and last year was visited by almost three million people in 2022, against seven million at the Colosseum And four million to the Offices. The hub will form a new stop on the existing high-speed train line linking Rome with Naples and Salerno, allowing visitors to reach Pompeii directly from the Italian capital and Rome’s Fiumicino Airport.
“We will take tourists directly from Rome to Pompeii. [This will be] a cultural asset for Italy and for culture,” Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano said last week on Italy’s flagship talk show Che Tempo Che Fa.
The minister also said that work on the hub would start imminently and the new station would open in early 2024.
The quickest route from Rome to Pompeii currently involves changing trains in Naples and taking a slow regional service that stops at a dozen coastal towns along the Gulf of Naples – a 250km journey that takes nearly two hours – while the new connection will bypass part of the coastal stretch.
The hub will also connect visitors to the Villa Dei Misteri stop of the Circumvesuviana rail network, which serves the archaeological sites of Ercolano, Oplontis and Stabiae.
Development is part of Great Pompeii Project, an EU-funded initiative launched in 2012 initially to secure the ruined site. This could see the number of visitors to Pompeii double from the current figure of around 20,000 a day, according to the Naples newspaper. Il Mattino estimates.
Some tourism professionals have celebrated the move, saying it will better connect Naples and the scenic Sorrento Peninsula. “Finally, it will be possible to circumvent the real obstacle today: that is to say, having to cross dozens of cities in the most densely populated area in Europe”, wrote Sergio Fedele, the president of the tourism association Atex Campania, in a press. statement. Others argued that Sorrento would be the loser. “These visitors will find it more convenient to travel directly to and from Pompeii […] rather than spending the night on the peninsula,” writes Gaetano Milano, ex-director general of the Fondazione Sorrento, a heritage organization, in News from Positano. “I fear that when we realize this it will be too late.”
