All Itineraries are tailor-made to suit the specific requirements of syllabus, budget and stamina. Please let us know Exam Board, options and modules – we can then discuss how best to incorporate prescribed Literary/Visual/Material Sources.
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Day 1

Arrive Naples airport, meet your courier and depart for the modern town of Ercolano. After a break for lunch in Ercolano, visit the Virtual Reality Museum (MAV) to dive into the past through a multisensory experience to discover the last days of Pompeii and Herculaneum through a different medium.

Once you’ve finished in the MAV, make your way down to the archaeological site. Rather different to Pompeii, a lot of Herculaneum is now under the modern town of Ercolano, so you’ll find no Forum or amphitheatre here (though there are private tours of the buried Theatre which are not annoyingly not bookable for schools).

Explore Herculaneum’s streets to see the remains of Baths, the boathouses where the residents fled to try and escape (unsuccessfully), private dwellings, the Hall of the College of the Augustales, and a Palaestra. The differing in the impact here of the eruption compared to Pompeii means you can find more second floors and carbonised wood. Once you have seen all that Herculaneum has to offer, meet your coach and depart for your Pompeii hotel. You then have time to check in before having dinner at the hotel.

Day 2

After breakfast you can depart the hotel on foot and cross the road to enter Pompeii via the groups entrance at the Amphitheatre Gate. One of greatest archaeological sites in the world and the greatest example we have for the layout of a Roman town.

Walk though the streets, poking your heads into doorways to see remains of atria and more! Walk across the floor of the oldest stone amphitheatre, marvel at the luxury of the House of the Faun, look down into the Insula dei Casti Amanti, find the statue of Eumachia in her eponymous building at the Forum, see the wonderful frescoes at the Villa of the Mysteries and make sure you see if the House of Caecilius is open!

The restaurant near the Forum is currently undergoing works but for lunch you can head up to the Casina dell’Aquila (you exit at it from the Insula dei Casti Amanti) for lunch. There’s so much more to see at Pompeii, even one full 7 hour day probably isn’t enough. The House of the Vettii has recently reopened for the first time in decades, so make sure that is on your list, and stop off at the Antiquarium on your way out. You have the option here of either a full day at Pompeii, or leaving the site after lunch and meeting a coach to take you to the Villa Poppaea at Oplontis before you return to the hotel for dinner.

Day 3

Breakfast at the hotel and check out before meeting your coach to depart. This day depends heavily on flight times – you could find time to visit Vesuvius and Naples Museum, or just have time for one. If it does look like an early flight then we can cut some more time out of Pompeii and have you meet the coach for Vesuvius on day 2.

The infamous volcano that buried Pompeii, Herculaneum and the surrounding villas. As part of the ticketing system you now receive a Guide who will accompany you round the National Park. Hike you way up to the Gran Cono of the still active volcano before meeting your coach and departing for Naples to get some lunch and then enter the National Archaeological Museum.

The collection of the MANN is nearly completely dedicated to the Bay of Naples (aside from their Egyptian section and some of the statues). You’ll find everything you could ever want here – Statues, Cameos, Gems, Frescoes, Silverware, Busts, Mosaics, numismatics, inscriptions (though the main epigraphic collection is currently closed) and much more. Split across 3 floors and the basement each type of find is split either by type or thematically (there’s a whole section dedicated to the Temple of Isis at Pompeii, for instance) and you can spend hours in here. Their new Campania layout on the ground floor will cover most of your bases, but make sure you head upstairs to see the Mosaics and Frescoes departments – the Alexander Mosaic is one of the greatest surviving from antiquity, before heading back the ground floor to visit the Farnese statuary collection.

The Farnese collection includes the very famous statue of Hercules from the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, and then the largest surviving statue from antiquity – the Punishment of Dirce. Once you are museum-ed out, meet your coach and depart for Naples airport to check in and get ready to fly home.

Feel free to contact us to tailor your own tour. 01342 324727