New Vesuvian Discoveries | Hidden History

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New Vesuvian Discoveries

5 days

from £1695 per person

A short-break at a quiet time of year to focus on recent findings and newly-opened areas at Pompeii and Herculaneum, with new insights of breath-taking detail and unparalleled significance to our understanding of the ancient world.

Highlights:

New insights from newly excavated areas at Pompeii and Herculaneum.
The wonderful in-situ frescoes at the Villa of Oplontis.
See underground Naples, a hidden world of archaeology.
A closer look at the astonishing collections of the Naples Archaeological Museum.
Based in a hotel at the very entrance to ancient Pompeii.

Dates & Prices:

06–10 April 2027. Only £1695.

Single supplement only £295.

Early booking is recommended.

Sorry! There are no departure dates currently available for this tour.
If you’d like a reminder when dates are available leave your email below.

What’s Included:

Four night’s 4-star hotel accommodation ideally located in Pompeii.
All breakfasts and three evening meals.
Daily excursions with all transport, entrances and expert guiding.
Airport transfers and flexible flight arrangements (see “Getting There” tab).

Tour Overview

This new short tour reveals the latest discoveries associated with the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Extraordinary new finds recently uncovered in Pompeii, and the opening of new areas in Herculaneum, make a short trip to the Vesuvian towns a must, even for those who have been before.

Staying in an elegant 4-star hotel at the entrance to ancient Pompeii, we focus on the three most spectacular of the Vesuvian sites – Pompeii, Herculaneum and Oplontis. We also visit Naples for a closer look at the astonishing collections in the National Museum, and to go underground to see the hidden world beneath the modern city – a whole network of streets and squares dating back to the city’s pre-Roman Greek foundation.

Dr Jamie Sewell, who has excavated at Pompeii, provides an in-depth look at these sites, with an emphasis on the newly excavated and newly opened areas. In Pompeii, excavations in Regio V and IX have attracted a lot of attention, with the discovery of new houses and frescos, as well as unfortunate victims. With funds poured into the site from the Great Pompeii Project, many parts of the site have recently been opened to the public for the first time.

At Herculaneum there hasn’t been new excavation on the same scale as at Pompeii because of the difficulty of digging the site, but new areas and museums have been opened to the public, including the spectacular theatre which is open by appointment only. We also examine the skeletons in the boathouses and the carbonized fishing boat found on the town’s beach.

See the ‘Itinerary’ tab above for more details.

: Pompeii's homes & gardens [1]

: Underground Naples [2]

: Pompeii House of the Faun [3]

Your Tour Director

Dr Jamie Sewell

Jamie is an engaging and passionate storyteller, and a popular and experienced tour leader. He has a PhD in Classical Archaeology from Birkbeck College, University of London, and many years of experience in field archaeology, He has a long list of publications, and has lectured at Durham University in England and at the Humboldt University of Berlin, where he currently lives.

Activity Level

Our tours are good for your health. There is plenty of walking and fresh air, but the pace is always gentle and stops are frequent. This tour is not especially challenging and simply requires a reasonable level of mobility and independence. Feel free to ask us for more details.

Getting There

You have complete freedom to choose when and how you travel, including your preferred departure airport, flight times, length of stay, airlines etc.

Why not extend your stay in the region, or perhaps reduce your carbon footprint by enjoying the journey to Italy by train instead.

We will be happy to help, and if you book your flights with us you will be fully ATOL protected. See the ‘Getting There’ tab above for more details.

Getting There

You have complete freedom to choose when and how you travel, including your preferred departure airport, flight times, length of stay, airlines etc.

Why not extend your stay in the region, or perhaps reduce your carbon footprint by enjoying the journey to Italy by train instead.

We will be happy to help, and if you book your flights with us you will be fully ATOL protected. See the ‘Getting There’ tab above for more details.

Travel More Sustainably

Did you know you can travel from the UK to Italy by train in a single day? Or why not stop off on the way? There’s a choice of routes, some fast and some slower but amazingly scenic. Why not go out one way and come back another?

Great scenery, room to breath, loads of legroom, cafes and bars, power sockets, free WiFi, no baggage fees, no 2-hour check-ins, no security queues…and around 80% less CO2 than a flight.

See the ‘Getting There’ tab above for more details.

What to Expect

All our tours include a full programme of expertly guided excursions and interesting talks to create an enriching travel experience. The emphasis is on both the cultural interest and the nature of the experience—focused but with time to relax and absorb it all.

We like to explore and get off the beaten track for special access to hidden gems and better integration with the local culture and economy. We keep our group sizes small (8–18 people) which enhances your experience and minimises adverse impacts on local communities. It is very relaxed and informal with no prior knowledge expected.

Click HERE for more about what to expect.

How To Book

Tours have minimum and maximum numbers of participants, so you will benefit from booking early; it secures your place and enables us to confirm your tour earlier. We keep our group sizes small, so tours can quickly fill but it is always worth checking for late availability.

Reservations & Enquiries: To reserve your place or enquire further simply click the “Book This Tour Now” button on the relevant tour page, and submit your details. You can also call us on (UK) 0121 444 1854, or email enquiries@hiddenhistory.co.uk.

There is no commitment and no payment at this stage; reservations are purely provisional until we have confirmed availability and proceeded with booking and payment.

Booking & Payment: Once we have checked availability, a deposit is required to secure your booking (£100 for UK tours, £250 for non-UK tours). We will email you a payment link which enables payment by credit card, debit card or bank transfer. Card payment can also be made by telephone (UK) 0121 444 1854.

Places and prices are guaranteed only with a deposit. Full payment is usually required 2 or 3 months ahead of the tour.

Financial Protection: Hidden History Travel is a member of the Travel Trust Association with membership number Q2398. This means that we provide you with the strongest consumer protection available in the travel industry. Any payments you make are 100% protected by the association to pay for your holiday or to reimburse you if we fail to provide it. Hidden History Travel also holds ATOL licence number 12463. This means that if you book your flights with us you will be protected if we or your airline cease trading.

See our booking conditions for further details.

BOOK THIS TOUR NOW

Image Attributes

[1] Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, Source

[2] Photo2023, CC BY 4.0, Source

[3] Porsche997SBS, CC BY-SA 3.0, Source

[Hero image] shakko, CC BY-SA 4.0, Source

[Feat. image] Daniele Florio, CC BY 2.0, Source

Day 1: Arrival

Your tour director will be on hand to help you get acquainted with your surroundings. Depending on flight arrival times, an included dinner will be held this evening or tomorrow evening, along with a lecture by Dr Jamie Sewell on new discoveries at the Vesuvian towns.

Day 2: Pompeii

The whole day is dedicated to exploring this most remarkable of archaeological sites. With our hotel located at the very entrance to the site, you can decide for yourself when to wander back to the hotel.

Pompeii was a thriving commercial town on the Roman Riviera, until it was obliterated in the eruption of AD 79. That event also preserved unparalleled detail about everyday life in a Roman town, from the way in which bakeries and brothels functioned to the circulation of traffic and the layout of the gardens.

We focus on areas which have been recently excavated, including the House of Leda and the Swan and the Thermopolium of Regio V, as well as the wonderful House of the Silver Wedding in Regio IX. We discuss a host of new insights, including the date of the eruption and the causes of death of its victims.

Day 3: Herculaneum & Oplontis

Although the site of Herculaneum is much smaller than Pompeii, the remains are much better preserved, because the city was completely buried under more than 20 meters of pyroclastic flow which sealed everything in anaerobic conditions, so allowing organic materials to survive. The effect of this is that Herculaneum provides a unique, sometimes eerie, portal into antiquity, with everyday objects such as clothing presses, wooden beds and trellises visible for us to see.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Cardo IV in Herculaneum is the most intact thoroughfare from the ancient world. Its precious remains include, for example, a wine shop with all its contents still exactly where they were placed on the day of the eruption.

We will be exploring the site with a particular focus on the newly opened areas, including the House of the Bicentenary and the House of the Gem, which preserves a spectacular mosaic floor. We also try to have special access to the theatre, not normally open to the public.

We also visit the nearby Villa Poppaea at Oplontis, owned by the family which gave rise to the beautiful wife of Nero whose untimely death gave rise to the myth that the emperor killed her. In the superb villa we explore the most important collection of frescos of any villa luxuria of the Roman world. The site also offers the most significant evidence of the nature of the Roman suburbs between the two Vesuvian towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Day 4: Naples

Today the unofficial capital of Southern Italy, Naples has a liveliness not seen anywhere else in the country. Once a highlight of the Grand tour, it is now a teeming, passionate metropolis, a colourful and chaotic pageant of a place perched precariously between a charming coast and a menacing volcano.

Deep beneath the city’s busy streets lies a quieter, hidden world of archaeology; underground Naples. We avoid the claustrophobic tunnels and venture instead just 30 feet below the church of San Lorenzo Maggiore to explore the easily accessible, well-lit and most completely excavated part of Naples. Here we walk along a Roman road beside a two-storey Macellum (marketplace) which formed part of the 2nd century BC forum, and we identify the superimposed layers upon which Naples developed from ancient Greek to modern times.

In the National Archaeological Museum in Naples we see one of the finest collections of Graeco-Roman antiquities in the world, including magnificent mosaics, frescoes, bronzes and everyday objects from the buried Vesuvian towns, and the uniquely important Farnese Collection of ancient and modern gemstones and larger than life Roman statues.

This evening we include a farewell dinner to celebrate the new discoveries and friendships we have gained from our time together on this very special tour.

Day 5: Departure

Time to head home, or why not stay longer in this beautiful region of Italy? There is lots more to see here, and this tour will have primed you well.

The Hotel Forum

Via Roma 99, 80045 Pompeii (Naples).
Tel: +39 081 850 1170.
Email: info@hotelforum.eu
Web: www.hotelforum.it/ita

The elegant 4-star Hotel Forum is ideally placed within walking distance of the Pompeii excavations, and its delightful garden with a citrus grove is a relaxing oasis. There are lots of local restaurants within easy walking distance of the hotel.

Location: Our hotel is in Pompeii, a 35 minute drive from Naples airport. Pompeii has two railway stations giving good access to other parts of the Naples region and Italy. There are regular fast train services between Naples Central Station and Rome.

Flexibility: You are free to make your own travel arrangements, or you can book them with us. Before booking any travel of your own please ensure we have confirmed your tour and your place on it.

Flights and Transfers: If you book your flights with us you will receive full ATOL protection. If you book one of our recommended flights, we will also include your transfers in Naples between the airport and the hotel.

By Train: Make the most of your journey while helping the planet at the same time. We recommend taking a look at an excellent website called “The Man in Seat 61”. Here you will find all the details you need for getting to Naples from the UK by train. You can get to Italy in a single day, but there is a choice of routes so why not enjoy the scenery and stop off at some interesting places along the way?

What is ATOL Protection? The ATOL scheme (which stands for Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing) is financial protection that protects you when you book a package trip that includes a flight. It protects you and your money if we, or the airline you booked with us, cease trading, before or whilst you’re on holiday. This means you will be able to claim your money back or continue your holiday and be repatriated. It is separate to travel insurance.

Hidden History Travel holds ATOL licence number 12463.

: Pompeii's homes & gardens [1]

: Underground Naples [2]

: Pompeii House of the Faun [3]

: Vesuvius from Pompeii [4]

: Herculaneum Street [5]

: The beautiful Bay of Naples [6]

: Uncovering new frescos [7]

: Villa Oplontis Frescos [8]

: Mosaic from Pompeii [9]

Image Attributes

[1] Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, Source

[2] Photo2023, CC BY 4.0, Source

[3] Porsche997SBS, CC BY-SA 3.0, Source

[4] Paulie1954, CC BY-SA 3.0, Source

[5] AAG1984, CC BY-SA 4.0, Source

[6] Glmike523, Public Domain, Source

[7] Pompejanischer Maler um 60 v. Chr., Public Domain, Source

[8] Falk2, CC BY-SA 4.0, Source

[9] Carole Raddato, CC BY-SA 2.0, Source

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April 6 - April 10, 2027

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