Pompeii & Herculaneum | Private

Embark on a unique journey through the immortal ruins of two of the ancient world’s best-preserved settlements. Starting from your hotel and driving along the Sorrento coastline, you’ll arrive at Pompeii where you’ll be met by your private guide. This fully functioning Roman city was drained of life when Vesuvius erupted in the October of 79 AD. Gorgeously painted villas and fascinating remnants of life appear at every twist and turn. Explore Pompeii’s stunning mosaicked villas; visit its seedy Lupanar (brothel); even discover the first ever “beware of the dog” sign at the House of the Tragic Poet.

We’ll then visit the less famous site of Herculaneum: an ancient port town consumed by the same eruption. Meet Herculaneum’s grisly skeletons, which greet you from within the boathouse as you first enter the site. Wander the town’s ancient cobbled streets, lined with multi-storeyed buildings found all over ancient Italy. Enter the College of the Augustales where priestesses performed sacrifices in honour of the emperor and worshipped him as a god. Your day finishes at an authentic winery situated on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius where you can indulge in some of southern Italy’s rich, earthy and world-renowned flavours.

Travel back in time 2,000 years to Pompeii

People think of Pompeii as a city frozen in time. They see it as offering an invaluable snapshot of a cataclysmic moment; the freeze frame of a day in which—for reasons utterly inexplicable to the ancients—their world turned to fire and ash, and a blanket of darkness came down bringing the routines of their daily lives to a violent, unexpected end.

Echoes of this event still reverberate within the walls of Pompeii’s near-perfectly preserved buildings: its houses, brothels, amphitheatres and temples. What’s more,we believe we can still hear these echoes from the city’s silent witnesses – its world-famous plaster cast bodies, whose eternal death throes give us our most direct and personal conduit to the past.

In Pompeii, it pays to have a guide who can bring the city to life, which is why we’ll be providing our trusted expert guide for the duration of your visits (4 hours). This isn’t just because they can contextualise its architectural relics: the Temple of Apollo, the Temple of Jupiter, the House of the Faun and the Gladiator Barracks, to name a few. They can also bring to life the stories of those who lived, toiled, and died there; stories channeled through the Pompeii Bodies that have been (and continue to be) discovered there.

Situated 10 miles north of Pompeii, Herculaneum was also completely buried by Vesuvius’s eruption. But rather than covered by four meters of ash like Pompeii, Herculaneum long lay under 20 meters of ash, mud, and other pyroclastic matter. This has resulted in a remarkably well-preserved site which offers arguably the world’s best window into the ancient past.

Visit the often overlooked town of Herculaneum

At less than a third of Pompeii’s size Herculaneum is a lot smaller than its illustrious counterpart. This is partly down to the town’s function; a chic, sleepy seaside community (perhaps a little like Sorrento) in the shadow of Pompeii’s bustling metropolis (a little more like the historical centre of Naples). It’s also small, not least because a staggering 75 percent of the site is buried and is likely to remain so while the modern town of Ercolano still sits on top.

Where Herculaneum immediately differs from Pompeii is in its topography. Rather than seamlessly merging with today’s world, Herculaneum forcefully transports you back two thousand years by making you descend to the ancient level. The tunnel at the site’s modern entrance brings you right down to the ancient beachfront where you’re met with a particularly macabre sight. For sheltering in perpetuity within the vaults of the ancient boathouses are the skeletal remains of several dozen ancient inhabitants, grisly reminders of the desperation that gripped the town in its final hours.

One of Herculaneum’s most striking features is its resplendency of colour. Its frescoes, mosaics, columns and walls remind us that antiquity wasn’t black and white but was flushed with (often overly-garish) colour. Standing alone in an ancient painted room is indescribably transportive. And owing to the fact that fewer people know about Herculaneum, you’re much more likely to find this experience here than at its monolithic counterpart, Pompeii.

Wind down at a winery on the slopes of Vesuvius

Following your adventure through Pompeii and Herculaneum, we will drive to the base of the volcano where we will visit a great family winery for a light lunch, wine tasting and vinyards tour. Please note, you can easily choose to visit the winery before climbing Mt. Vesuvius if you prefer.  After this wonderful day we’ll drive back to your accommodation in Sorrento, about 1 hour away.