Pompeii Guided Tour from Sorrento

Departure from Sorrento

Pompeii is a vast archaeological site in southern Italy’s Campania region, near the coast of the Bay of Naples. Once a thriving and sophisticated Roman city, Pompeii was buried under meters of ash and pumice after the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. The preserved site features excavated ruins of streets and houses that visitors can freely explore.

The Basilica, with its extension of 1,500 square meters, was the most sumptuous building of the Forum, and its space was used to carry out business and for the administration of justice.

The Civil Forum is the core of daily life of the city and is the focal point of all the main public buildings for city administration and justice, business management, and trade activities such as markets, as well as the main places of citizen worship.

The Temple of Jupiter dominates the north side of the Forum, with Mount Vesuvius scenically rising behind. When the colony was founded (80 BC), the temple underwent a radical renovation and became a real Capitolium with the three cult statues of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, which looked like those of the Capitolium in Rome, placed on a high base so as to make them visible to whoever passed in the Forum square.

The Macellum consists of a tuff quadriporticus with a hall for worship in an elevated position on the eastern side, in line with the entrance. The copies of two marble statues, a female and a male armed, are found on the niches of the side wall, together with the fragment of a larger statue, probably pertaining to an emperor, Titus or Vespasian, indicating how this area was intended for the imperial cult. To its left is a room for meetings of a sacred board and to the right a large room with a masonry counter perhaps for fish to be sold.

Via dell’Abbondanza was the ancient main street (decumanus maximus) of ancient Pompeii, which ran across the city in the direction east/west from the Forum to the Porta Sarno.
In ancient times the street was crowded and noisy with many shops, workshops ("officinae”), cafes, snack-bars and restaurants for food and drink.

The Forum Baths are located behind the Temple of Jupiter and date back to the years immediately after the founding of the colony of veterans by General Silla (80 BC). Women's and men's quarters had separate entrances. The men's section presents an apodyterium (dressing room), used also as a tepidarium (for medium temperature baths), frigidarium (for cold baths) and calidarium (for hot baths). Like many buildings in Pompeii, the baths were heavily damaged during the earthquake of 62 AD.

The house of the Menander is a great example of a Roman Villa owned by an high-ranking family. It is reachly decorated with wonderful frescoes representing scenes of the Trojan war and here were also founded many objects in silver, tableware now strored in the Archaeological Museum in Naples. The house owes its name to a picture of Menander, an Athenian poet, placed in the portico.
The house belonged to Quintus Poppaeus Sabinus of the Poppei family, relatives of the Empress Poppea Sabina, Nero's second wife.

The Large Theater of Pompeii was built from the Romans on the slope of a hill located in the area; they took advantage of the natural depression of the mountain to create a majesty auditorium divided into 5 sectors.
On the stage were played tragedies of the Greco-Roman traditions.