If you can pick any date, June offers the best overall balance for a first visit to Pompeii: about three rainy days in an average month against May's six, and about 3,000 fewer people a day inside the site than May drew in 2024. Both count for more than they sound on 44 hectares of open excavation, where the main streets have almost no shade and very little to shelter under, and the shoulder months — April, May, September and October — are the crowded ones here, not high summer. What June costs you is heat, about 27 °C by day against May's 23, which is the one good reason to take May instead — and whichever you pick, book a two-hour archaeologist-led walk and go in at 09:00, when the gates open and the stone is still cool.
Lower is better in all three. June takes rain and crowds; May takes the heat.
From $34 with the entry ticket included. Or pick your date in the calendar alongside.
Most people reading this have already booked their flights, so here is what each part of the year gives you before anything else. May is the coolest of the warm months and brings the most comfortable walking of the year, at about 23 °C. July and August are the hottest, close to 30 °C, and they are quieter than the shoulder months rather than busier. September is warm and still on the long timetable, and October still averages 22 °C by day, though it brings the first of the autumn rain. November through February are the emptiest months by a wide margin — January drew 3,617 people a day against May's 16,675 — and what they cost you is daylight, because the park closes at 17:00 with last entry at 15:30.
April is the one month whose reputation runs ahead of its figures. It is usually named in the same breath as May, and on rain the two are not close: an average April takes 98.6 mm across 9.3 rainy days, more than March, and the same number of rainy days as January. If April is your month, that is a reason to start early and book something with free cancellation, not a reason to change your trip.
Showing the long-term average for June, the month we would pick. Choose a date above and this card switches to that date — to the live forecast if it is within the next two weeks, and to the long-term average for its month if it is further off. The card always says which of the two you are looking at.
Warm and reliably dry, on the long timetable. Take the 09:00 opening while the stone is still cool, give it two hours, and keep the afternoon for somewhere with shade.
Free cancellation up to 24 hours before on all three, so a date you are unsure of is not a date you are committed to.
The reason this one survives every month of the year is its length. Two hours is what you can do comfortably at 27 °C in June, it is what fits inside the shortened winter day when the gate stops admitting people at 15:30, and it is long enough for the western route that first visits are built on: the Forum with Vesuvius framed at the end of it, the baths, the House of the Faun, the plaster casts. The park's own Pompeii Express admission is included and registered in your name, which the nominative ticket rule now requires.
Book the 09:00 departure specifically. A guided walk runs to the operator's timetable, not yours, so the entry hour is something you choose at the booking form rather than on the day, and later slots do sell out last. Whatever month you land in, being through Porta Marina at opening changes more about the visit than choosing between two adjacent months does.
Meeting point: Via Villa dei Misteri, at the Porta Marina gate, two minutes from the Pompei Scavi–Villa dei Misteri station on the Circumvesuviana.
The 09:00 departures are the ones that sell out first in May and September. Two hours, entry ticket bundled, free cancellation up to 24 hours before.
Check dates and pricesPompeii has no season in the sense that a vineyard or a national park has one. The houses that are open in February are the houses that are open in August, at the same price, and nothing you came to see disappears. What the calendar changes is the physical experience of covering the site: how hard the sun is on paving that holds heat, whether the basalt is wet under your feet, how many people are in the same narrow doorway, and how many hours the gate leaves you.
Winter, December to February. The emptiest months and the shortest days: 4,453, 3,617 and 4,919 visitors a day in December, January and February 2024, against 16,675 in May. The park runs 09:00 to 17:00 with last entry at 15:30, and the grass grows back between the stones, which is the one time of year the site looks like the overgrown field it was before excavation. Around nine or ten rainy days a month, and highs of 13 to 14 °C, which is comfortable walking weather when it is dry and miserable when it is not.
Spring, March to May. The site greens over and the crowd arrives with it. March is still quiet at about 8,798 visitors a day and still on the short timetable until the 16th. April and May are the two heaviest spring months, and they are not the same month: April averages 98.6 mm of rain across 9.3 days, May 59.0 mm across 6.1. May is the pick of the three for weather and the busiest month of the whole year for company.
Summer, June to August. Dry and hot, and measurably quieter than the shoulder either side of it: 13,690, 14,489 and 13,589 visitors a day against April to May's 15,545 and 16,675. June sits at 26.7 °C and about three rainy days; July and August average 29.9 and 30.3 °C with barely any rain at all. This is also the part of the year the park uses for its evening openings, when a selection of sites stays open into the night on set dates with performances and food. The dates are announced fresh each year, so treat them as something to look up rather than a fixed annual fixture.
Autumn, September to November. September is a second June with more rain and more people. October is easy to misread: 22.1 °C sounds like the perfect compromise, and it arrives with 135.5 mm of rain across 8.5 days, the second-wettest month of the year. October is also when the one genuinely seasonal thing inside the walls happens. The park replanted vines in the ancient plots of Regions I and II, on the ground the Romans used and with the varieties they grew, and the grapes are cut in October; in some years the vines are opened so visitors can watch. Then the timetable shortens on 15 October and November empties the site, from 15,524 visitors a day to 6,329.
| Month | Average daily high | Rainy days | Visitors a day | Daylight | Park closes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 13.0 °C / 55 °F | 9.3 | 3,617 | 9h 34m | 17:00 |
| February | 13.5 °C / 56 °F | 9.1 | 4,919 | 10h 39m | 17:00 |
| March | 15.7 °C / 60 °F | 8.6 | 8,798 | 11h 53m | 17:00, then 19:00 |
| April | 18.1 °C / 65 °F | 9.3 | 15,545 | 13h 17m | 19:00 |
| May | 23.0 °C / 73 °F | 6.1 | 16,675 | 14h 26m | 19:00 |
| June | 26.7 °C / 80 °F | 3.3 | 13,690 | 15h 05m | 19:00 |
| July | 29.9 °C / 86 °F | 2.4 | 14,489 | 14h 50m | 19:00 |
| August | 30.3 °C / 87 °F | 3.7 | 13,589 | 13h 50m | 19:00 |
| September | 26.6 °C / 80 °F | 6.1 | 15,611 | 12h 31m | 19:00 |
| October | 22.1 °C / 72 °F | 8.5 | 15,524 | 11h 10m | 19:00, then 17:00 |
| November | 17.1 °C / 63 °F | 10.2 | 6,329 | 9h 56m | 17:00 |
| December | 14.1 °C / 57 °F | 9.9 | 4,453 | 9h 16m | 17:00 |
A rainy day is one that records at least a millimetre of rain, so a month with 9 of them still has 21 dry ones. The park switches to its long timetable on 16 March and back on 15 October, which is why March and October carry two closing times. Daylight is mid-month and is not the same as opening hours: the gates shut at 19:00 while the sun is still up from late March to early September.
Four options, each picked for a different problem the calendar creates. All four include the park admission and cancel free up to 24 hours before.
Two hours from the 09:00 opening, which is the shape that works at 30 °C in August and inside the 15:30 winter cut-off alike. The standard western route with the ticket bundled in, and the most-reviewed walk at the gate by a wide margin.
Free cancellation up to 24 hours before.
Only possible while the park runs to 19:00, and it puts you inside during the block the park caps at 5,000 places against the morning's 15,000. In May and September, when the mornings are at their fullest, that is the trade to make: warmer walking, lower light, fewer people through the doorways.
Free cancellation up to 24 hours before.
A small group matters more in winter than in summer, because the wet-weather version of a Pompeii visit is a lot of standing in doorways. The flexible length suits a day that ends at 17:00, and January and February give you the site at about 3,600 to 4,900 people a day.
Free cancellation up to 24 hours before.
The one option the calendar genuinely gates. A Rome round trip needs the long timetable to be comfortable, so it belongs between 16 March and 14 October; in winter the 15:30 last entry leaves very little margin after the drive. Vesuvius is the optional half, and the crater path is the part weather closes.
Free cancellation up to 24 hours before.
The hour you go matters as much as the month, and at Pompeii the two answers are connected, because the park sells the day in two pieces. Between 16 March and 14 October it releases a maximum of 15,000 places for 09:00 to 13:00 and a maximum of 5,000 for 13:00 to 17:30, inside an overall daily limit of 20,000. That is a ceiling on tickets sold and not a count of who is standing in the Forum, but it tells you which half of the day the park builds for volume.
In practice the answer splits by temperature. From June to September, take the 09:00 opening: the stone has cooled overnight, the guided groups have not yet stacked up in the House of the Faun, and you are out before the afternoon peak. In the cooler months the calculation flips, because 18 °C at two in the afternoon is not a problem, and the afternoon block is the smaller of the two by a factor of three.
Two hours is the useful unit either way. It is what a guided walk of the western half takes, it is what most people can do on unshaded paving without flagging, and it fits both halves of the day. If you want longer, split it: a morning tour, lunch outside the gate, then re-enter on the same ticket is not possible, because standard admission is single entry, so a longer visit means one continuous stretch and more water than you expect to drink. The two-hour archaeologist walk is built around exactly that constraint, and its departure time is something you pick in the booking form, so choose the 09:00 one.
One date to steer around in any month: the first Sunday, when admission to Italian state sites is free. On Sunday 6 October 2024 that brought 36,480 people into Pompeii, which the park described as a record never previously reached on a free Sunday. The 20,000 daily cap arrived the following month, so that scale is unlikely to repeat, but the first Sunday is still the one predictable spike on the calendar.
Pompeii is one of the few places where you do not have to guess at this. The park publishes what it counts, month by month, and the twelve months of 2024 add up to exactly the 4,069,377 annual total it also publishes. Divide each month by its days and the shape of the year is unambiguous.
May is the peak, at about 16,675 people a day. September at 15,611, April at 15,545 and October at 15,524 are all within seven per cent of it. June, July and August — the months a first-time visitor is most often warned about — ran 13,690, 14,489 and 13,589. Averaged out, the four shoulder months are about 14 per cent busier per day than the three summer months. September is often described as the quiet alternative to May, and the park's own count does not support it: the two months are close enough that the difference will not be what you notice.
Then the year drops away. October runs 15,524 a day and November 6,329, a fall of 59 per cent in a single month, and January bottoms out at 3,617, under a quarter of May. The fall lands in the same fortnight the park shortens its timetable, on 15 October, and the two are connected: the coach and cruise programmes that fill the shoulder months are built around a site that stays open until seven, and they thin out when it stops.
What the count cannot tell you is where those people end up once they are through the gate. Sixteen thousand spread across 44 hectares is not a queue, and nobody publishes which streets or which houses they stand in. The one distribution fact the park does publish is about time, not place: between 16 March and 14 October it sells three times as many morning places as afternoon ones, 15,000 against 5,000. Which hour you walk in is the lever you actually control, and it is a bigger one than the choice between two adjacent months.
Weather matters more at Pompeii than at most famous sites, and the reason is the ground. UNESCO records 44 hectares of excavated city, and you cross a good deal of it on foot, on volcanic paving, with almost no shade on the main streets and only a handful of roofed rooms to step into. The same August afternoon that is pleasant in a Naples courtyard is genuinely hard work on the Via dell'Abbondanza.
That is why the temperature column matters more than the rain column for most of the year. An average daily high of 30.3 °C in August is a shade reading taken at head height; the paving is hotter, and it stays hot into the evening. Between 26.7 °C in June and 29.9 °C in July is where the line sits for most people, and it is the single reason May keeps a recommendation of its own.
Rain is the other way round: rare, and disproportionately costly when it lands. Two things are useful to know about the figures. A rainy day is one recording at least a millimetre, so it says nothing about whether the rain lasted ten minutes or all afternoon, and nothing about the odds on your particular date. And the monthly millimetre figures are a total depth across a whole month, not a daily rate, so November's 152.1 mm does not mean November rains steadily — it means November's ten wet days are heavier than January's nine. Neither number is a forecast, which is what the date check higher up the page is for.
The practical version: from June to August you are managing heat and can more or less ignore rain. From November to March you are managing rain, and a wet day at Pompeii is mostly a booking problem, not a ruined trip — free cancellation up to 24 hours before means a bad forecast is a date change. April and October sit in between, and both read better on the temperature column than they turn out on the rain one.
The park runs two timetables and switches between them on fixed dates. From 16 March to 14 October it opens 09:00 and closes 19:00, with last entry at 17:30. From 15 October to 15 March it opens 09:00 and closes 17:00, with last entry at 15:30. It is closed on 25 December and 1 January. Every ticket is nominative, issued in the name of the person using it, and the site admits a maximum of 20,000 people a day.
Those two hours at the end of the day decide more than they look like they should. They are what makes a Rome day trip work: nine to twelve hours door to door, of which the drive is most, so an entry at 13:00 needs a gate that is still open at 17:00. In the winter timetable the same trip has to be through the gate by 15:30, and any delay on the autostrada eats the visit rather than the margin. If you are coming from Rome, the long timetable is close to a requirement; from Naples or Sorrento, forty minutes away by train, it is only a convenience.
Daylight is a separate thing from opening hours, and at this latitude the gap runs the wrong way in summer. Mid-June gives just over fifteen hours of daylight and a sunset after 20:30, while the park closes at 19:00, so the golden hour at Pompeii happens after you have left. In December the reverse applies: the sun sets around 16:35 and the last entry at 15:30 means the site is genuinely dim by closing, which is atmospheric in the Forum and awkward in a windowless room.
Tap a question to open the answer.
June, if your dates are open. An average June brings about 3 rainy days against May's 6, it drew about 13,690 visitors a day in 2024 against May's 16,675, and the park is on its long timetable, open 09:00 to 19:00 with last entry at 17:30. What June costs you is heat: the average daily high is 26.7 °C against May's 23.0 °C, on a site of 44 hectares with almost no shade. Choose May instead if the heat is what you mind most, and choose January or February if an empty site matters more to you than a long day.
The 09:00 opening in any month you would call warm, and the 13:00 slot in the cooler ones. Between 16 March and 14 October the park sells its 20,000 daily places in two blocks: a maximum of 15,000 for 09:00 to 13:00 and a maximum of 5,000 for 13:00 to 17:30. That is a ceiling on tickets rather than a count of who is inside, but it tells you which half of the day the park expects to be full. In July and August the heat settles the question on its own, because the temperature peaks in mid-afternoon and there is nowhere on the main streets to get out of it.
Good walking weather, and the wettest of the four spring months. April averages 98.6 mm of rain across 9.3 rainy days, which is more rain than March and the same number of rainy days as January, and it was already running about 15,545 visitors a day in 2024. The daily high of 18.1 °C is genuinely pleasant for walking. If April is when you can come, book a morning walk, treat the weather as a coin toss and pick a tour with free cancellation so a washed-out forecast is not a lost ticket.
May. The park recorded 516,923 visitors in May 2024, about 16,675 a day, which was the highest of the year. The surprise is what comes next: October at 15,524 a day, September at 15,611 and April at 15,545 are all within 7 per cent of May, while June, July and August ran 13,690, 14,489 and 13,589. At Pompeii the shoulder months are the crowded ones, and high summer is not the peak.
It is open every day except 25 December and 1 January, and winter is when you get the site closest to empty. January drew about 3,617 visitors a day in 2024 and February about 4,919, against May's 16,675. Two things change. From 15 October to 15 March the park opens 09:00 to 17:00 with last entry at 15:30, so the visiting day is two hours shorter, and January and February average around 9 rainy days each, on a site with very little shelter.
The average daily high is 29.9 °C in July and 30.3 °C in August, and individual days run well above that. What matters more than the number is the ground: 44 hectares of excavated stone and volcanic paving with almost no shade on the main streets, and a temperature that peaks in mid-afternoon. High summer is also drier than any other part of the year, at 2.4 rainy days in July and 3.7 in August. Walk in at 09:00, plan on two hours instead of four, and carry more water than you think you need.
The first Sunday of each month, unless a free ticket is the point of the trip. State museums and archaeological parks in Italy admit visitors free that day, and on Sunday 6 October 2024 that put 36,480 people into Pompeii, which the park called a record never previously reached on a free Sunday. It happened before the 20,000 daily cap came in on 15 November 2024, so a repeat on that scale is unlikely, but the first Sunday remains the one date each month you can predict will be busier than the days around it.
More on the practical side of a visit: how long you need and the first-visit route, which ticket to buy, what a tour actually costs, and what nobody tells you before you go.