Itinerary
After being picked up at the most convenient location to your hotel around 08.00, you start your 30 minute joumey along the Sorrentine Peninsula to get to Pompeii,one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world.
(more information and videos on Pompeii and Vesuvius is provided below)

A professional guide will take you to some of the more famous and intriguing sites amongst the excavations of this large archaeological site to provide you with a very graphical account of all aspects of life in Pompeii before, and during, the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 BC.

You will be guided through the ancient streets of Pompei to see the amphitheatre, baths, forums, homes, shops and villas built by the prosperous Romans with fabulously preserved frescos which adorn the walls and floors.

After the tour your comfortable and air conditioned coach will be waiting to take you back to Sorrento in the afternoon in time to relax by the pool with a cool drink or ice cream.

Days available
Monday or Wednesday

Pickup points and times
You will be advised of the most convenient pickup point for your accommodation
Approx 08.00 start and 13.00 return depending on the pickup point

Method of payment
After reservations have been confirmed payment can be made by credit card before the visit or in the Sorrento office itself, whichever is the more convenient.
To book a reservation please use our enquiry form or telephone +44 (0) 1446 771220.

Extras paid on site.
Pompeii entrance fee € 11.00

Additional Notes
Lunch is not included in the price of this excursion
Comfortable walking shoes, sun hat and bottled water is advised

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Background information about this excursion
Here is some factual information about Pompeii.
You can also see videos of Pompeii on Friends of Sorrento TV

Pompeii
Pompeii was founded around the eighth century BC by Osci who settled and divided it into 5 villages at the southern foot of Mount Vesuvius, not far from the river Sarno, then navigable. The number five, in Oscan, probably derives the name of the town. The first settlements date back to the Iron Age, or the IX - VII century BC C., when there was the culture of "graves". Pompeii at that time was a very important commercial centre, so that it was a target for expansion by the Greeks and the Etruscans before, the Samnites later. The Samnites had the merit of having enlarged the walls of the town, and giving it a large urban development. At this time there was a strong architecture impulse: a triangular and rectangular Forum were reconstructed and important buildings like the Temple of Jupiter, the Basilica and the House of the Faun, which is the size of a Hellenic Palace. In the same period has also built the Temple of Isis was built and it is clear evidence of trade with the East of Pompeii. Pompeii became the residence of the Roman nobility and, in Imperial times, many families supported Augustus’s policy and moved here and ordering the construction of buildings like the Temple of Fortuna Augusta and the building of Eumachia.

Under Nerone the Campania region suffered heavy damage due to an earthquake which occurred in 62 or 63 A.C.. The Roman Senate immediately ordered the reconstruction, but all was in vain, because August 24 of 79 B.C., when rebuilding was still underway, a disastrous eruption of Vesuvius wiped it out completely with, Herculaneum, Stabia and Oplonti. There was almost no escape for anyone and the thriving Pompeii was only a cloak lava often up to three meters and cemented the inhabitants and destroyed all manner of life.

From this great tragedy the famous archeological excavations of Pompeii, where began and been brought to light the ancient Roman city destroyed tragically after one of the eruptions of the nearby volcano Vesuvius in the year 79 B.C.. In Pompeii work started around 1748, in the area of Civita, which was then believed to be Stabia, alternating with breaks due to other discoveries at Herculaneum, and continued mostly without a definite plan and without a precise method, performed by prisoners in chain and young boys. The research was aimed only at finding material for museums or to decorate the royal palaces, while the buildings excavated, once stripped of artworks, were left without any care or protection from the weather. With the outbreak of the France revolution and also the start of the first revolutions in Naples the activity of the excavations decreased significantly with Joseph Bonaparte and Joachim Murat, later resumed, on a larger scale, and more intensively.

With the birth of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, the Savoys did not underestimate the prestige arising from the discovery of Pompeii. By the wish of the new king systematic excavations began: he appointed Giuseppe Fiorelli as director, a professor of archaeology at the University of Naples. Fiorelli adopted a scientific method, with logging excavation, surveying, indexing of objects, and employing more than five hundred workers. To him we owe the invention of the method of filling with plaster the gaps left by the victims in bank hardened ash, providing a kind of matrix that produces the imprints of the bodies caught in the moment of death, with dramatic intensity. The system of removing all objects from the excavations was abandoned: the paintings and mosaics were mostly left in place, the houses were covered with carved roofs which copied the layout and provide a hedge against early deterioration.

The years that followed were the best: extending the search to the east and towards the Porta di Nola, bought to light many houses, consolidate the structures and restoring the paintings on the site. The last thirty years have been alternately modest exploration for the conservation, of primary importance to this unique place in the world. The excavation work is overshadowed today by the need to restore and protect this world famous site, the best example of a Roman city in the world. The visitor will realize that Pompeii offers a variety of things to see that the guide will need to select in order to give visitors an idea as complete as possible of the classical Roman city. In fact you can admire all the structures typical of the Roman world as the main square or forum, baths, theatres, the neighbourhood of prostitution (brothel), the roads that intersect the second axis east-west and south-north, mansions with remains of frescoes from Roman times, the attraction of spectacular plaster casts containing bones of Pompeians that died during the disaster, numerous shops that lined the streets and the remains of electoral registrations.

The excavations of Pompeii, Herculaneum and with those of Oplontis are given in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Site. Thanks to the scientists, historians, archaeologists, restorers and all those people who are so dedicated with the tragedy of Pompeii that did not destroy the city, there have only stopped enough time to return it to the appearance it had on that particular day in 79 B.C.