Visit Pompeii Private Tour

Please be aware Pompeii site is extended on a surface of approximately 160 acres. To make the best of your time Leisure Italy offers an optional professionally guided service. Our guided walking tour shall be adapted to the interests and walking attitude of the participants. 

The following is a suggested itinerary for our private guided walking tour but please let us know if you have 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.

Right before this gate, there is a not-to-be-missed, the Suburban Bath House, recently excavated and therefore very well preserved.

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

Your attention will be caught 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 was called the 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 called Eumachia), Administration (the Basilica) and Politics (Comitium). Other facilities in the Forum where 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, there were public thermal baths where both men and women (in different sections), poor and wealthy, free and slaves could access daily hygiene. Pompeii had 3 of such complexes in town plus 2 right outside the 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! In fact, those earthenware jars were filled up with food and beverages, and very many ancient Pompeians would stop in such places for lunch.

You will certainly recognize some of the bakeries of Pompeii, with their ovens and their grinding machines: incredible but true some round carbonized loaves of bread were found during the excavations. This is nowadays 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 a stop by the red light district: the brothel (Lupanare) shows us today an interesting display of roman frescoes featuring several erotic images!

Do not miss the chance to discover Pompeii 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.