Wonders of Ancient Pompeii Tour

Photogallery (13)
from 189
Activity Level
Moderate
Duration
2 hours

Overview

Enjoy a Private Guided Tour of Ancient Pompeii, the incredible Roman City buried by Mount Vesuvius. This private walking tour will let you discover the Excavations of Pompeii ruins at your pace.

  • Personal Experience with expert certified Tour Guide
  • See Pompeii Forum, public baths, taverns, shops, theatres
  • Learn about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the daily life of the inhabitants of Pompeii
  • Marvel at the fabulously preserved frescoes and mosaics in the private homes and in the small museum

Included

Private licensed tour guide.

Extra

Admission fees to the archaeological site.

Optional

Pompeii Express skip-the-line tickets which allows to visit areas within the city walls. Pompeii 4kids option.

Meeting place

Café Hortus Pompeii, Piazza Porta Marina Superiore 1, Pompei.

Wheelchair friendly

No. Please ask for our Accessible Pompeii.

Dress code

Casual with comfortable shoes.

Additional info

The walking tour will be adapted to the group, although this tour requires some endurance, especially in the summertime.

Upon request, we can arrange transport.

Itinerary

The Excavations of Pompeii are too big to be visited entirely in one day. Our guided walking tour aims to visit an example for each typology of building to have an overview of the ancient Pompeii and Roman World at that time. Your private guide will tune to your pace and energy.

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. 

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; differently from other Roman towns, Pompeii didn’t have a complete sewer system because the city was built 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 10 reviews
15th September 2019

Best Tour ever ! As Kiwis travelling through Europe, visiting historic sites and learning about ancient history is such an excitement. Stefania was fantastic, she was extremely knowledgeable and helpful. We learnt so much from her, she was energetic ( even in the 35+ heat) She answered all our questions, she was easy to understand. We had a fantastic time, that will be a treasured memory.

7th November 2017

Fabrizio was super knowledgeable, cordial and just the perfect private tour guide. We learned all secrets of the city. He took us around spots that avoided the masses and gave us a truly memorable, bespoke experience. Thank you, Fabrizio