Pompeii and Sorrento Private Day Tour from Rome

POMPEII Pompeii (just 16 miles southeast of Naples) is the most-visited archaeological site in the world, due to its many and well-preserved ruins, left behind by a city buried in Vesuvius’s wake in the year 79 A.D. The ancient site was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997, an excellent repository of details on quotidian life during Antiquity. Although the Osci Tribe originally founded it, the Romans captured Pompeii during the Peninusla’s Social War, transforming it into a Roman Colony and naming it Cornelia Venera Pompeiana. Partly-destroyed by an earthquake in 62 A.D., the entire city and its splendid suburban villas did not last long enough to see complete reconstruction: Vesuvius not only erupted, but spewed enough lava so as to instantaneously cover the city – which also meant that its buildings (down to the decorations and ornamentation) and its people were immediately fossilized as if they had been placed in a sort of time capsule, remaining in large part intact. The eventually-recovered bodies, particularly those belonging to “Julius Polybius’s family,” included Polybius himself (this Polybius being a laundry service owner) and a woman fleeing the volcano’s approaching aftermath with her jewelry in tow. These personages ended up serving as their excavators’ key to reconstructing the Pompeiians’ last moments of life. Amazingly, the inhabitants did not have a clue that they were living in the shadow of a volcano that had been sleeping for over 1,500 years; it is no wonder that they were not able to get away in time (neither did Pliny the Elder, Admiral of the Roman Fleet, while attempting to save them). Pompeii was essentially forgotten for centuries, until the first archaeological explorations in the 18th Century. Pompeii was a thriving Mediterranean port and a resort enclave for wealthy Romans; if it had not been for the remarkable state in which nature happened to maintain its remains, it might not have come to occupy the place in our imaginations that it does today. We know it for its civic buildings that line its wide streets, and for its domestic ones like the Surgeon’s House, the House of the Faun, the House of the Chaste Lovers and the equally-famous Villa of Mysteries (so-named for the interior murals depicting the initiation rites of the Cult of Dionysus). Characteristic graffiti defines the exteriors of many of the buildings here, while refined frescoes narrating daily life are standard interior decor in many of Pompeii’s homes. From them the city’s principal archaeologists have inferred a sense of glamour, luxury, and the appreciation for beauty and art possessed by the ancient Romans that resided here. Other of Pompeii’s treasures that survived long enough to tell the city’s story are its main forum and public structures, such as the Capitolium, the Basilica, the public baths, the triangular forum, its two theatres and the Stabian Baths. Pompeii, along with the disappeared towns of Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata (the suburban community of ancient Oplontis) compose a UNESCO World Heritage Site, well-deserved for their ability like no other to recount the life and times of a fascinating bygone society. SORRENTO An expanse of land that juts out towards Capri and the rest of the Mediterranean, it lies just south of the Bay of Naples. It is a sequence of cliffs and overhangs dominating the coastline - with a few small bays along the way – blessed with a view of the enchanting deep blue. This, the Sorrentine Coast, is passable only for its sloping terraces cultivated with oranges, vines, olives and, most of all, lemons, all the way to the sea. Tourists lucky enough to pass through in springtime will be pleasantly overwhelmed with their perfume, while visitors year-round can enjoy the divine consequences of the sour citrus once picked: after all, life gave this Coast lemons, and the people made Limoncello! Among the important and fruitful traditions handed down through Sorrentine generations, one stands out over the rest: the recipe for Limoncello, world-famous liqueur made from an infusion of lemon peels and alcohol. Sorrento and Limoncello are practically one and the same, and should always be considered a pair - a caveat visitors to Italy should heed when invited to purchase this delectable souvenir anywhere outside Campania. Now quite common and produced in other lemon-rich parts of Italy, genuine Limoncello is nonetheless obtained from the lemons of Sorrento and its peninsula (many also consider Capri’s groves a valid resource as well). Why? Because the lemons here are quite large and emit a singular, intoxicating perfume; they are an organically-grown variety, i.e. sans chemicals or fertilizer of any kind. Limoncello's gradation should be between 30 and 35°, while its color rests somewhere between yellow and a pale green, depending on how ripe the lemons are. It is served very cold, often after a meal. Interested in tasting more of this zone? Try the provolone del Monaco P.D.O., the mozzarella di bufala P.D.O. from Campania, and so many other typical local specialties.