Europe has a lifetime of travel experiences. I agree that this train is very difficult and unpleasant with luggage. Virtually no one posting comments about tours ever tells us what they paid, which to me is essential information. Fountains provided a social center at intersections. Our company. I know this sounds peculiar. We stayed in Sorrento and used the Circumvesuviana train. There's plenty to see at each place, so unless you are working on your own PhD. Gaetano himself wrote back and arranged a tour guide named Rosaria, who was both delightful and informative. Payment of the tour is due in cash at the start of each service that the client has booked.The client's credit card details are necessary only to hold the booking. 01/17/20 12:51 PM 2829 posts Pompeii is a gigantic archaeological site that can be 'sampled' on a 4-hour brisk walk or on a full-day visit (9 to 6 with breaks). All you have to do is relax and enjoy your time/trip for as long as you are with us, we will be sure to take care of you. Because tepidarium means "lukewarm bath.". That's exactly what we're doing this time as we explore Naples. [clams]
No taste of Naples is complete without a pizza. Gaetano: Yes to the crossroad, avoiding wet feet. Safe travels! You do NOT "need" a tour company or service to do this trip for you. Some folks offer discounts for early booking. A bad move, because the next morning a red-hot pyroclastic flow struck Pompeii, dealing a fatal blow to those who had remained, and burying the city under 30 feet of volcanic ash. Any cancellation request by a Client must be made in writing and be acknowledged in writing by the Company. Now we walk. I don't do it all the time because I like all arrangements (except large tours). Learn more about the Rick Steves Audio Europe app or download the app now: It's colonnaded atrium with formal garden and water flowing to give freshness was ringed by colorfully frescoed rooms. The date on which the request to cancel is received by the Company will determine the applicable cancellation fees. Hiking around the crater's lip, you enjoy spectacular views of its fertile and densely populated surroundings. Home Our Tours Browse Search Find a Tour All Tours Top Sellers Austria In This Month's Tour News Spain's Passion, Pilgrims, and Pickle Women Bask in the Culture Join a Basque Country of Spain & France tour Feel Spain's Passion On our Best of Andalucia tour 1 2 3 Our Small-Group Tours Scrapbook Contest Winners! To make things easier and more affordable for my readers, I've partnered with Naples-based Mondo Guide to coordinate shared tours. I am traveling with a history buff who will want to stay more than 3 hours and 2 others that don't want to walk that much. I would make the bigger sites (theaters, specific people's houses) a priority and then see what you see on the way to those. To serve its 20,000 residents, the city boasted more than 40 bakeries, 130 bars, and plenty of public baths. I'm Rick Steves. Lisa. Walking through its colorful old town is one of the most memorable . This looks like a 3-hour small group tour (a lot of others I've found are only 2 hours), and sounds pretty good. ), and then drove to where the ferry goes to Sicily. I would verify that any hotel also has private parking. In fact, the rich actually commissioned this art to entertain their guests. You can return to this website anytime to check how many people have signed up for your selected tour. 2023 Rick Steves' Europe, Inc. | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy. The group was small and hit all the highlights and was not long and drawn out, which may be a bit much for an 11 year old who may be more interested in walking around and not standing and listening to someone talk. We toured Pompeii with Gaetano last April, and found him to be a fabulous tour guide. This scene from the grand Battle of Alexander with over a million pieces decorated a floor in Pompeii's House of the Faun. It was one we will always remember. Take Rick Steves along as your personal guide! Signs of animals have also been found, including a saddled-up horse that appears ready to carry its master to safety. There is no verbal or written; representation, warranty, prior agreement, or description of services, other than as expressed herein. Scot, do you have a specific website for Tours of Italy? And when we traded him, the city criedthat's the tears. Probably the next largest group visit Pompeii as part of a daytime travel day, with 2 to 4 hours at the ancient site. You need to distinguish between signs for (and train tickets to) "Pompeii Scavi" (i.e. Get the entire package audio tours, maps, scripts, updates, and more in the Rick Steves Audio Europe App. Its nicer, and we did take it once during our stay. We found it excellent for our purposes but of course it is not geared to you personally. The nearby Spanish Quarter is Naples at its rawest and most characteristic. If you need a tour of Pompeii, you cannot go wrong with either of the two Manfredis they are the best. We spent a long time there to find the actual sites that are in the book which made seeing them very interesting. Gaetano: This was the tepidarium, so people coming from gymnasium after sport, they were massaged by the slaves. It is worth the extra hour train ride from Naples. This topic has been automatically closed due to a period of inactivity. Con artists are more clever than you. Rick: So the pedestrians walk across and not get wet? That's exactly what we're doing. I find it strange that so many would register on RS, post a single review, and move on. Stepping into the lavishly Baroque Ges Nouvo church you'll learn how, along with sports heroes, Neapolitans have their religious heroes too. Each has a symbol of the ailment cured: heart disease, lung problems, a sick child, whatever. (But probably not during your visit there'd likely be at least a few hours or days of warning.) The museum is home to Pompeii's finest art and artifacts, including a display (in the "Secret Room") of erotic frescoes that were considered so bawdy that by the time they made it here, in 1819, they could be viewed only with permission from the king. At about 1 p.m., Vesuvius sent a mushroom cloud of ash, dust, and rocks 12 miles into the sky. Hi! 7205 posts You do NOT "need" a tour company or service to do this trip for you. I was told the same thing (that week) at Herculaneum. My husband and I visited Italy in 2012, and then again last week with family, using our Rick Steves (2011) guidebook both times. And we had a chance to observe Gaetano's son, who was leading a smaller group nearby. The Toro Farnese features a tangled group with a woman being tied to a bull. Rick Steves has an arrangement with Mondo Guides for shared tours. Of the two sites, Pompeii is grander, while Herculaneum is smaller, more intimate, and more intact; both are easily reached from Naples. They are the only people authorized to use your details and solely for the purposes of sending you updates from their site, booking confirmation, receiving required info or having right to access to the reserved area.As for the Section 13 of the above Law Mondoguide srl owns all the information it receives and can be contacted at info@mondoguide.com , at any moment and completely free of charge, to partially or fully modify or cancel your personal data. This topic has been automatically closed due to a period of inactivity. happyonehb, 2 posts, August 2022 Rick Steves Rick Steves Snapshot Naples & the Amalfi Coast: Including Pompeii (Rick Steves Travel Guide) Paperback - February 4, 2020 by Rick Steves (Author) 4.7 286 ratings Part of: Rick Steves Travel Guide (23 books) See all formats and editions Paperback $4.50 13 Used from $4.50 1 New from $22.82 There is a newer edition of this item: I'm Rick Steves, back with more of the best of Europe. While Mount Vesuvius is sleepy today, in AD 79, the volcano exploded, sending a cloud of ash and cinders 12 miles into the sky. And a steady stream of water flushed the chariot-rutted streets clean. 2023 Rick Steves' Europe, Inc. | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy. For the price, we felt it was well worth it! Neither rich nor poor, Pompeii was a typical middle-class town. This church's unique pyramid-grill facade survives from a fortified 15th-century noble palace. Herculaneum is much smaller and can be visited well in three hours. You can stand at the bar or pay double to sit. While the site is evocative, the horrors of that day in 79 AD are hard to imagine. Attilius is efficient, incorruptible, practical, terse and hard-working, but he risks his life to save a woman he has unexpectedly fallen in love with. I showed him Pompeii in my own way! pghautz, 2 posts, April 2023 You know, during the excavations, sometimes the archaeologists found, under the volcanic materials some empty spaces left by the decomposition of the bodies. He was entertaining, thorough, and had many interesting stories of life in Pompeii during the eruption. From there, a 30-minute hike takes you to the 4,000-foot-high summit of mainland Europe's only active volcano. It leads through the colorful heart of the old city. To get a clearer picture of what everyday life in ancient Rome was really like, visit the well-preserved (and unlucky) city of Pompeii. I'm sure Gaetano and family are as wonderful as the multiple one and done posters say they are. The last thing I want to do is get on the internet and tell people that this or that guide charged me X amount, when it is not likely that everybody will get the same deal that I did, thereby putting a guide that I really liked in the position of having to explain why Estimated Prophet paid less. 39:20. It's part of a trilogy. Did your tour include a private driver? I gave the book five stars, a rating I rarely give, on Goodreads. From the Pompeii stop, shuttle vans take curious visitors up the volcano to the end of the road. And from its richly decorated forum, people had a postcard-perfect view of the looming volcano, Mount Vesuvius. I learned more from it about ancient Rome, volcanoes, water management and workplace dynamics than I would have from any manual. The plaster casts show remarkable details the folds of togas, the straps of sandals, the pained expressions on victims' faces. Man: Lupini. Stepping back out on the streets, the immense Piazza [del] Plebiscito celebrates the plebiscite, or vote, in 1861, when Naples chose to join Italy. That's why, even though this site is so impressive, the finest art and artifacts of Pompeii ended up back in Naples, at the National Museum of Archaeology. it's 15 euro a person which you pay to the guide, and you sign up on the site above. This was with my 75-year-old mother and our 8-year-old son. With its buildings, gridded street plan, and frescoed art remarkably intact, Pompeii offers the best look anywhere at life in an ancient Roman town. Does Herculaneum need one day to see? He committed to give us a 3-hour tour on June 9th. Thanks Rick Steves and thanks to the Pompeii guide Gaetano who coordinated a wonderful and all too brief two hours with tour guide Rosaria. Sorrento offers pleasant strolling and lots of tourist services. So while we get it that they do a great job, what did fees for this service run for your specific tour? We are then dropped off back at our hotel in Sorrento. New discoveries since then include more skeletons, vivid frescoes,an ancient snack stand, and evidence that the eruption had taken place two months later than historians had long thought. thesis about certain villas, it wouldn't be a big problem. Once enough travellers have signed up, we will send you a second email confirming the tour. Once upon an ancient Greek time, that woman, Dirce, seduced a king who abandoned his pregnant queen. We had limited time to do these tours so we wanted a private driver. OK! Naples is Italy in the extreme. https://www.napoliunplugged.com/naples-circumvesuviana-railway Terms of Service | Privacy, Pompeii: Italys Frozen-in-Time Roman City, Antiquities and Archaeology Our group was quite small, 5, but 2 had failed to show up. She was worthless. I'm glad to hear that he also did a good job. We'll go shopping Neapolitan style, dodge scooters in Naples' crazy traffic, explore the city's vibrant neighborhoods, admire exquisite ancient mosaics, taste pizza in its birthplace. There are always special cases. Large groups could make the visiting experience worse than going solo. But I will specifically confirm that in 2014 I ASKED the turnstile guard/aide (who punched my ticket because the electronic scan was broken? The Drunken Faun singing and snapping his fingers to the beat, is clearly living for today true to the Epicurean philosophy Caesar's father-in-law subscribed to. I have been posting for years on RS so I am not a one-time poster to answer a question by a previous posters. When Pompeii was excavated in the late 1700s, Naples' Bourbon king bellowed, "Bring me the best of what you find!" To skip the lines at the site's entrance, purchase your ticket online (for a small surcharge). Last year I did a similar tour in the south of France with an excellent tour guide. Pompeii was interesting, but I personally would not do a daytrip from Rome because it's just too far. But the ability to re-enter there should not represent a new rule! 81 comments Best Add a Comment DVInoise 1 yr. ago We were just there. Meet the guide or driver at the designated meeting point and time at least 10 minutes prior to the tour's departure. In April 2022, we booked our Pompeii private guide through Askos tours. Happy Travels! Note that there is a modern city called Pompeii that sits on unexcavated parts of the ancient city. Roberta: This is basso living. It spewed for 18 hours sending a red-hot avalanche racing down the mountainside at about 100 mph burying the city of Pompeii in 20 feet of scalding debris. By gently filling in the holes with plaster, the archaeologists created molds of the Pompeiians who were caught in the disaster. I paid between $300 to $370 euros for a similar tour set-up. Each stall is eye-catching. I booked a private tour for my nephew and I with guide, Antonio Somma, who is recommended by Rick Steves. You cannot re-enter any site after you exit. (18:31), Antiquities and Archaeology II Our tour of Pompeii with guide, Gaetano Manfredi was educational, interesting, and moved at an excellent pace. The Royal Palace illustrates how the city has suffered through many foreign rulers. Just did this tour with Walks of Italy, https://www.walksofitaly.com/pompeii-tours/ with Sonia. Rick: Oh, vongole! We also used Askos for a day trip to Naples to see the National Museum of Archeology. Until next time, keep on travelin'. I tend to find the audio guides a bit dry. We are paying $250 euros per person so $500 euros total. Then on October 24, AD 79, everything changed. ( i did tip him 20 euros) Posted by lpricehike As we still do today, after the sauna to harden the muscles and for the body's circulationthe cold bath. (We did it, but opted for a car transfer on departure!) by Rick Steves' Italy Follow. Roman dining rooms were always richly decorated. But we walked right to the Scavi/Villa Mistiri (ironical typeface) Circumvesuviana stop. In so many ways, you'll find southern Italy is a distinct culture from the north. Remember: If we don't get enough people who sign up, the tour will not go. We were astounded by Pompeii and spent the entire day.something we hadnt expected. But I will agree that the gate by the Villa of the Mysteries is an outlier . Public drinking fountains still stand along the city's main streets, many of which would have been lined with stalls and jammed with customers from sunup to sundown. Note that this also was not an inquiry about a one day-runout to Pompeii from a hotel in Rome. When Mr. Steves toured Pompeii with me, it was his 4th time, having been previously with different other guides. It turned out to be one of my favorite days on my trip. I am baffled when recommendations for a guide do not include the specifics: How many people were in your group? Pompeii was excavated back in the 1700s before Italy was united. My family and friend group had 12 people. Venus, the patron goddess of Pompeii, was a favorite pin-up girl. Hey! Meanwhile, still-active Vesuvius rises up on the horizon, smoldering ominously. The finest art and artifacts ended up here, leaving the ancient sites themselves barren (though still impressive). We found nice restaurants in the town. But lately, with mayors committed to safety and law and order, the city has more police, and feels much safer. Roberta: The temple of Maradona. 10/02/22 09:03 AM 132 posts yes, the Mondo shared tours: https://www.sharedtours.com/ it's 15 euro a person which you pay to the guide, and you sign up on the site above. In good Roman style, the city was well-organized, with a grid street plan contained within its walls. Any other recommendations for guides, especially those good with older children? The steaming vents are a reminder that while Vesuvius may be quiet, it's just taking a geological nap. Ancient Rome controlled the entire Mediterranean Sea. Pedestrians need to be wary, particularly of the motor scooters. It is against company policy for our drivers to suggest or take clients to any specific shops or restaurants. I expect to tour Pompeii on October 21st with my 82 year old mother in tow. We're getting quotes of 140 for a two hour tour and 180 for the transportation. In Italy soccer's like religion, in Napoli especially. Rick: OK the traditional sort of romantic life in the streets of Naples? Rick: So literally, "low." It was a two hour tour for $130. Pompeii is a pointed critique of stoicism -- a philosophical school experiencing an unexpected bit of popularity in the years following the covid pandemic. A good guide will bring the pile of rubble to life. We are booked with tours of Italy for a small group in late April but we have to get from the port to the ruins and back on our own. A display shows the great doctor's apartment, his possessions, and photos. If people really want to see Pompeii, like we did, it's an option. And fast food comes in the form of a folded pizza. Since you are driving, figure getting there noon or just after, I would plan at the minimum two nights, maybe three. Take the Eurostar (fast train) from Rome Termini to Naples, transfer to local commuter train Circumvesuviana and head for Pompeii Scavi. Would anybody have an update number or email address? We drove from Orvieto after lunch, stayed the night at the Pompei hotel, entered the ruins when the gate opened the next morning, spent most of the day until it got too hot and crowded, spent another night at that hotel, saw Herculaneum first thing the next morning (well worth it! 2023 Rick Steves' Europe, Inc. | And so what they did, they injected a liquid plaster in these empty spaces. In 1599, Pompeii was accidentally rediscovered during construction of a canal. In the year 79 AD, Pompeii was a thriving, middle-class Roman city of around 15,000 people-until it wasn't. That summer, nearby Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the city of Pompeii and 2,000 of its inhabitants, effectively preserving the city in its entirety as part of a massacre. And plunging deeper? Although, the replies ranged from 3 hours to all day at Pompeii. Pre-registration is required, and each tour will depart only if at least six people have signed up (6-19 people maximum). We also got to see a motel or two on the (modern) road outside the Scavi. This past February, when I was planning a family trip to Rome with my adult children and grandchildren, I again wanted a tour of Pompeii, so I contacted Gaetano and was thrilled that he was still giving tours 12 years later. A part of the ceiling is still original, and so we can see how beautifully decorated it was once on the ceiling.