An archaeological English-speaking guide at your disposal for 3 hours
ENTRANCE FEES ARE NOT INCLUDED
Meeting with our English-speaking guide in Pompeii near the ruins.
The morning of 24 August AD 79 was a day like any other. In the city of Pompeii, the inhabitants were living their lives as always. Suddenly in the air a deafening crash resounded and the ground started to shake. Few hours later Pompeii and other nearby towns were completely buried under several metres of pumice and ash, in the same tragic fate.
Pompeii was discovered in the 1590s, but it was not until 1748 that excavations really began. Since its discovery, Pompeii became a fixed destination of the journey that the young English and French nobles were making in Italy, the so-called Grand Tour. It also attracted kings, intellectuals, writers and artists, who by their writings and their works caused it aesthetics consecration and spread the image of Pompeii at a mass audience. The preservation of a Roman city, including its inhabitants, inspired many writers, who set in Pompeii their lucky novels as Théophile Gautier, Wilhelm Jensen and Edward Bulwer-Lytton with his well-known The Last Days of Pompeii. Even the theatre and the movies were inspired by Pompeii, thus increasing the myth of the buried city. One of the most famous paintings inspired by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius is The Last Days of Pompeii , painted between 1827 and 1833 by the Russian painter Karl Bryullov.
Private buildings cover much of the urban area of Pompeii. The city is therefore a vantage point for the knowledge of the ancient Roman house and its evolution over the centuries of Roman life. The most ancient Pompeian houses such as the House of the Surgeon, date back to the IV-III century BC and show that since that time the lay-out of the Italian house with the atrium was already defined in its essential elements. In Pompeii one can see examples of homes that have become famous in the world for their beauty and complexity such as the House of the Faun and the House of the Vettii. Pompeian houses are very important not only for their architecture but also because they provide the most important source on the evolution of Roman painting from the second century BC to the 79 A.D. Nowhere else in the world such a large amount of wall paintings and stucco works has been preserved. These are indeed very delicate materials and only a special circumstance such as the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD has allowed the preservation in particularly good condition. Pompeian painting is classified according to four different styles that correspond each one to the different periods in the life of this city. The most recognizable style in Pompeii is the fourth one, as it was developed in the mid-first century AD and was still in use at the time of the eruption.
In the 1860s, an Italian archaeologist named Giuseppe Fiorelli pioneered the technique of pouring plaster into the impressions the rotted bodies had left in the ash creating detailed plaster casts of the victims in their final moments.
This private 3-hour tour with a English-speaking archaeological guide will introduce you to the destruction and excavation of Pompeii with a look at the city and its history, its houses and shops, relating them to the people who lived there.
Moreover our private 3-hour tour also takes a look at the places of relaxation and entertainment like the bath and the theatres.. Nearly 2000 years later, Pompeii gives us an incredible record of everyday life at the time of Roman Empire.
THIS THREE-HOUR GUIDED TOUR IN POMPEII RUINS COSTS EUROS 200. THE ENTRANCE FEE IS NOT INCLUDED.