A Road trip from Heidelberg to Naples

Dec 28, 2024

A few weeks ago, I had this idea about visiting Pompeii. As it was, at the end of the year, the flights were super expensive. So the idea became a road trip from Heidelberg, Germany to Naples, Italy.

Day One

Heidelberg to Milano

More than 200 KM of the nearly 560 KM Drive to Milano was through Germany, for the first part of the journey it was an uneventful, boring drive.

As always, the Swiss landscape didn’t fail to amaze us.

Tip: food and fuel are much cheaper in Germany compared to Switzerland.

Milano City

I’ve booked a place on the outskirts of Milano to spend the night. Since we had a few hours of daylight left, we’ve decided to go up the Branca Tower, to get some views of the city.

The tower offered an eagle’s eye view of almost all the city.

Senal liked the m-ero mini car that we saw on the street. Says, he wants it to be his first car.

Driving with in Milano city is basically fine. Finding parking wasn’t much harder than finding parking in a German city. Maybe because it’s the winter time and holiday season.

Day Two: From Milano to Florence

We continued our journey on A50. Italian toll roads are expensive. It costs around 4 EUR per 100 KM. But without toll roads, travel time can get nearly doubled.

This section of the a50 didn’t offer much to be seen. It looked mostly like this:

Since we had a little detour to Modena to meet a cousin, it was almost dark when reaching our destination.

We stayed in Valdarno, a mountainous region just south of Florence. The place looked more like an old palace later converted to an accommodation, and the yard was full of olive trees.

Day Three: From Florence to Naples

We left Florence early, thinking we might be able to get to spend sometime visiting Mount Vesuvius. But that was a bit too much of optimism considering the fact that we are travelling with three kids and snack breaks are a vital part of the journey.

By the evening we managed to take a glimpse of Mount Vesuvius and the beautiful landscape of Naples.

We booked Vill Le Favole, for our 2-day stay in Naples. It was a lovely place full of mandarin trees.

Day Four: Pompeii

The main goal of our trip was to visit Pompeii. It was 24th December, so there weren’t many visitors. I’ve read a lot about Pompeii, but I was totally surprised by the amount of history encapsulated in to this city.

Visiting the city including Villas can take 4 to 5 hours.

Day Five: From Naples to San Marino

The day 5 was one of the longest drives inside Italy. The max speed is 130 Kmph on toll-roads, so we left early as we were planning to take a detour to Mount Vesuvius.

We couldn’t visit the crater, as it was closed due to windy weather, but the views from the top of Vesuvius were remarkable.

As we drove from Naples to San Marino, we were going through Apennine Mountains. This was, unquestionably, the most scenic highway drive for me. It was much better than driving through the Alps.

I was using my GoPro to take photos while driving, so the photos might not fully justify my claims.