Private Herculaneum Guided Tour from Sorrento

Pick-up in sorrento area

Located in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, Herculaneum was an ancient Roman town destroyed by volcanic pyroclastic flows in 79 AD. Its ruins are located in the comune of Ercolano, and are the best preserved ones in the area; a unique location freezed in time. Together with your official guide, you will walk into a living picture of the 79 ad

The Casa dei Cervi is an imposing example of a Roman noble family's house that, before the volcanic mud slide, boasted a seafront address. Constructed around a central courtyard, the two-storey villa contains murals and some beautiful still-life paintings.

The House of the Skeleton probably the aggregation of three smaller buildings, derives its name from the discovery of human remains in a second floor room in 1831. Some inhabitants shut themselves in their homes and they died there either by suffocation or because of the extreme heat of the gases which hit the town.

It is thought that the building was a centre of the cult of the Emperor Augustus and the headquarters of the Collegium Augustalium (or possibly even the local curia).

The "thermae" were the city's public baths. There were relatively few private baths and these were limited to the most well-to-do families, given that the latter were the only ones who could afford to build rooms suited to the purpose. The thermal bath buildings were divided into two sections: one reserved for women and one reserved for men. Each of these contained a series of rooms with different functions: changing room cold bath room tepid bath room hot bath room all well preserved from the passing of the years

The Partem Domus Lignea, owes its name to a folding wooden door discovered here; it was used to separate the atrium from the tablinium (the studio of the owner). In front of the façade it's still possible to admire the benches where the clientes waited to be received from the host.

After the Eruption of the Volcano Vesuvius, many inhabitants fled for their lives reaching the beach. The men tried to protect women and children, but the fury of the Volcano was unstoppable and the waves, the sand and the lava destroyed the little port and the beach. The wooden boat, recovered from the ancient beach, was covered with a resinous material, which preserved it perfectly, and in 1982 it was bring back to lifeand put back in the right position, so travellers can admire it.

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