Visit Pompeii Private Tour

Photogallery (14)
from 383
Activity Level
Moderate
Duration
4 hours

Overview

Explore the Excavations of Pompeii at your own pace with this private tour. Follow the steps of great travelers and enter the myth: the ancient Pompeii has been buried for centuries under volcanic ashes. Together with your guide, you will explore public Baths, private Homes, the Forum, Taverns, Shops, Theatres, and more: an incredible journey through time back to the Roman Times

  • Get the chance to personalize your tour
  • Private Licensed Guide and Driver
  • Available from Naples, Sorrento, and Salerno
  • Engaging all the family
  • Convenient round-trip transportation from your location

Included

Mercedes private vehicle with a professional driver, all taxes, fuel, parking fees and pay tolls.

Extra

Entrance fees to Pompeii.

Optional

Private tour guide in Pompeii or for the entire tour, Pompeii Express skip-the-line tickets which allows to visit areas within the city walls, Pompeii 4kids option.

Meeting place

Where request in Naples, Sorrento or Salerno.

Wheelchair friendly

Please ask us about the Accessible Pompeii Tour.

Dress code

Casual with comfortable shoes.

Additional info

The tour is available also as a Private Shore Excursion from the Port of Naples, Sorrento, or Salerno.

Pompeii is too big to be visited entirely in one day. Leisure Italy  will make sure you see the highlights. Our optional guided tour aims to make the best of your time.

Your private driver will meet you in Naples, Sorrento, or Salerno where requested.

The Site of Ancient Pompeii is located on the Bay of Naples between Naples, Salerno, and Sorrento. Along the road, you can see and feel the towering presence of Mt Vesuvius on your left. On the other side, you will instead enjoy nice views of the Bay of Naples and its islands. In a distance across the Bay lays Cape Misenum, where the Roman Military Navy was based. From this position, Pliny the younger observed and described the eruption in 79 AD.

Guided Walking Tour

The Pompeii site extends on a surface of approximately 160 acres. To make the best of your time, Leisure Italy offers qualified guided service. Our guided walking tour is adapted to the interests and walking attitude of the participants.

The following is a suggested itinerary for our private guided walking tour: let us know would there be any special request!

 

In Pompeii, you will first admire the city walls, dating back to the pre-roman Pompeii (4 centuries BC). One of the best-preserved ancient gates is called Porta Marina. It connected Pompeii with its port, with a path for charts and one for people.

Once in town, you will be walking on the original road made of basalt stone (volcanic rock), and you will notice on the ground hundreds of little white spots made of travertine used to reflect torchlight (nowadays “cat’s eye” on the driving roads).

Your attention will be captured by big blocks of basalt emerging from the road: they were stepping stones used by pedestrians to avoid getting wet when it rained; in fact, differently from other roman towns, Pompeii didn’t have a complete sewer system because the city was build on top of a lava platform too hard to be worked.

The city center is called Forum. It hosts all the buildings with a public function: Religion (the Temple of Apollo, the Capitolium and the Temple of the Emperor), Trade (the meat and fish market called Macellum, the textiles market headed by a priestess named Eumachia), Administration (the Basilica) and Politics (Comitii). Other facilities in the Forum were exchange offices, public restrooms and a public scale (tabula mensurae) where to compare and weigh farmer’s products. In the Forum, you will also see a display of the famous human casts.

Close to the Forum were public Bath-Houses where both men and women (in different sections), poor and wealthy, free persons and slaves could access daily hygiene. Pompeii had three such complexes in town plus two more right outside town, and they all had the following facilities: a changing room (apodyterium), a tepid room (tepidarium), a hot room (calidarium) and a Gym (Palestra).

You will notice several places fronting the road with large vases built in a masonry counter: this is what the Romans called popinae, today’s taverns! These jars were full of food and beverages, and many ancient Pompeians would stop in such places for lunch.

You will recognize some of the Bakeries of Pompeii, with their ovens and grinding machines: incredible but true, some round carbonized loaves of bread were found during the excavations. These are on exhibit at the Archaeological Museum of Naples, together with more carbonized organics such as almonds, pine cones, figs, dates, etc.

Your visit would be incomplete without the red light district: the Brothel (Lupanare) shows an interesting display of roman frescoes featuring several erotic images!

Do not miss the chance to discover Pompeii’s places for public performances: an outdoor Theatre (for comedy and tragedy), an indoor theatre (Odeion, for mimes and declamation of poetry) and a big Amphitheater (for games like gladiators or beast fights). You shall visit at least one of those places.

 

After the tour at Pompeii, you could stop for a few minutes for a fresh-squeezed orange juice or to browse the souvenir shops if you wish.

Tour tags

Tour Reviews

5.00 based on 9 reviews
22nd February 2023

We took a family tour (kids aged 10 & 8) of Pompeii with Fabrizio and had a fantastic time. Fabrizio picked us up from Naples station and quickly & safely got us to Pompeii in his very nice touring van. From the start Fabrizio was a wonderful tour guide and host for his home town of Naples. He gave us a great explanation of the different sites and history as we drove to Pompeii and took particular care to engage the children just as much as the adults. Access to Pompeii was easy as Fabrizio had pre-arranged tickets and then we were treated to the highlights of the city (we, the parents could have gone on for much longer, but this was a perfect amount of time for the kids). Fabrizio knows which parts of the city to highlight and his passion and knowledge for place show through clearly in the way his tour brings the city to life. We are very much looking forward to returning to the area and trying the other tours that the company offers!

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