ACTIVE FROM 01 APRIL TO 31 OCTOBER – DEPARTURE FROM SORRENTO
• Air-conditioned bus
• Licensed guide
• Not included: optional meals and entrance fees
Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed by the terrible eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD: and now they present us with an exceptional insight into the life of two different cities in the early years of the Roman Empire. An extraordinary opportunity to take a dip in the past and relive ancient everyday life.
Pompeii was a rich city of agriculture and trade: its wines were famous, it was inhabited by Campanians who still spoke part of the ancient Oscan language, who loved to live well and have fun. The city is full of thermal baths – the favorite pastime of the ancient Romans – theaters (two of them), the Amphitheater where the famous gladiatorial games took place, even houses where you can buy temporary love. And then there is the Forum, made splendid by the monuments and large spaces, in which the public life of the city took place, the religious one with two Temples, the commercial one with the Macellum, the legal one with the Basilica intended for trials. And the houses of the rich Pompeians, adorned with statues, frescoes, mosaics, still visible today in the House of the Dancing Faun, in the house de Vetti, in the splendid Villa of the Mysteries.
Herculaneum was smaller, overlooking the sea, it was full of beautiful villas of Romans who practiced otium, that is, who went there to read, converse with friends, live in peace, a kind of second home today in which to spend their free time. In one of these, an entire and very precious library of important Greek and Roman writers and philosophers was found, and we remember that at that time even books, all manuscripts, were an indication of wealth and prestige. Herculaneum was submerged by a sea of mud and here the first remains were found. Pompeii, on the other hand, suffered a rain of light lapilli, which covered it without destroying the houses and structures.
A visit that has no equal in the world, which presents an experience without any terms of comparison, a real time machine that will lead to a visit to a distant and wonderful era.