Vesuvius: the crater path sells 50 slots per 10 min

The Gran Cono of Vesuvius can only be walked with a ticket bought online in advance: €11.68¹ full and €9.55¹ reduced, in slots of 60 places every 10 minutes, 50 of them released 30 days ahead.

No ticket desk, no walk up

Access to Trail 5, the Gran Cono, is exclusively by advance online purchase, under an ecosustainable use protocol approved by presidential decree 24 of June 29, 2026, which fixes time slots and visitor ceilings.

Tickets cost €11.68¹ full and €9.55¹ reduced on the platform, against a listed fare of €10.00 and €8.00, the gap being the presale fee. The €8.00 rate covers residents of the park's 13 comuni, anyone under 25 and school groups booking through the dedicated address.

The two capacity figures on the park's pages are the two halves of one allocation, not a contradiction. The protocol sets 360¹ hikers an hour, so 60 people every 10 minutes in three groups of 20, and of those 60 the site sells 50 up to 30 days ahead and releases 10 as last minute places 30 minutes before the slot. Since April 11, 2026 the last minute tickets carry a name and are capped at 5 per email address.

The daily ceiling moves with the season, from 2,160² visitors in January, February, November and December to 3,240² in July and August, and the gate closes automatically, ticket office included, whenever the regional civil protection alert reaches orange.

4,010 meters, 1,175 above the sea

The path runs 4,010¹ meters there and back, reaches 1,175¹ meters above sea level and takes around two and a half hours. The park classifies the difficulty as low.

Low difficulty is not the same as easy going. The surface is loose volcanic gravel, the gradient is constant, and there is no shade anywhere on the cone, which matters more than the distance between June and September.

The ridge route along the northern and eastern flanks of the cone is permanently closed except by authorization. What you buy is the walk to the crater rim and back, and nothing else on the mountain.

Seasonal hours, and the closures nobody schedules

The gate opens at 9:00 am every day, and closing moves with the season: 6:00 pm in July and August, 5:00 pm from April to June and in September, 4:00 pm in March and October, 3:00 pm from November to February and in January.

Those are the printed hours. The Gran Cono also closes without notice for weather alerts and for fires, which are a recurring summer problem on this mountain, so check the opening status on the day rather than relying on a booking made a month earlier.

Prices here come from secondary sources and are not confirmed on the official page we read. The booking obligation and the protocol are.

Green alert, and 1944

Vesuvius is at green alert, the lowest of the 4 national levels, which corresponds to ordinary activity. Its last eruption was in 1944 and it has been quiescent since, with a blocked conduit.

The national scale runs green, yellow, orange, red, with each step above green marking a growing disequilibrium towards a possible eruption. Vesuvius is one of the 4 Italian volcanoes with national emergency planning, alongside Stromboli, Vulcano and the Campi Flegrei.

A blocked conduit is a technical description, not a reassurance and not a warning. It says that the system is closed at the top, which shapes what kind of eruption is modelled rather than when one is expected. Alert levels change: re-check before you travel.

700,000 people, 25 comuni

Around 700,000⁵ people live on the slopes of Vesuvius, and the red zone of the emergency plan covers 25 comuni in the provinces of Naples and Salerno plus parts of the city of Naples.

The planning scenario is a sub-Plinian eruption of the 1631⁵ type, while the Civil Protection Department indicates a violent Strombolian eruption, VEI 3, as the more probable event. Those two statements are not in conflict: you plan for the larger case and expect the smaller one.

That is the reason the crater path is metered at 60 places per 10 minutes rather than left open. The mountain is a national park with a town at every gate. More at Pompeii, Herculaneum and 700,000 under Vesuvius.

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