Handpicked experience · Naples
Naples, Italy
Streets that doubled as sewers, eleven thousand pieces of Roman graffiti, and an island whose outermost sea stack has lizards found nowhere else.
A two-hour guided walk through Pompeii, entering past the queue
A hydrofoil crossing to Capri with a guided look at the island
Free time on Capri for the shops and the cafes
Return pickup from your hotel or the cruise terminal
Pompeii admission taken care of in advance
One long day covering two things that have nothing in common except the bay they sit on: a guided walk through the excavated streets of Pompeii, then a hydrofoil out to Capri for the cliffs and a few hours of your own. Admission to Pompeii is covered and you go in past the queue.
You are collected from your hotel or the cruise terminal and driven to Pompeii for a two-hour guided walk through the site. Afterwards the transfer continues to the port for the crossing to Capri, where a guided orientation is followed by free time before the return. Eight hours, a good deal of it moving between the two.
Walk any main road here and you will find blocks of stone set across it at crossing height, with gaps between them. Pedestrians used them to keep out of the water and waste that ran down the roadway, while the gaps were spaced to let cart axles through. The ruts worn into the paving by iron wheel rims are still there, deep enough to catch a modern ankle, and they show which streets carried the heaviest traffic.
Pompeii preserved more everyday writing than any other Roman site: bar tabs, election notices, declarations of love, complaints about the food, insults aimed at named neighbours. Election posters were painted by professional sign-writers who also listed the supporters backing each candidate, which means we know who ran, who endorsed them, and roughly what the town thought of both.
A teenager watching from across the bay described the column of ash rising and spreading like a pine tree, its trunk going straight up before the branches flattened out. He wrote his account roughly twenty-five years afterwards, in two letters, and it remains the sole surviving eyewitness description. His uncle, the fleet commander who sailed towards the eruption to help, died on the beach at Stabiae. Volcanologists still call this kind of eruption Plinian.
Capri has no river, no spring worth the name and no lake. For two thousand years everybody on it drank rainwater collected off roofs into cisterns cut in the rock, which is why old houses have those broad flat terraces and why the Romans built enormous underground tanks. The island now takes its supply through a pipe from the mainland, laid along the seabed.
Capri was Neapolitan territory until the first emperor of Rome decided he wanted it, and swapped the far larger island of Ischia to get it. It stayed imperial property for a century afterwards, and his successor ran the empire from villas up here for a decade — an early demonstration that the island suits people who would rather not be visited.
This is a full day with two forms of transport in it, and the Pompeii site is unshaded, uneven underfoot and hot from May onward. Bring water, a hat and shoes with a proper sole. The crossing takes about forty minutes each way. Cancellation is free up to a day ahead.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
Pickup, a two-hour guided walk at Pompeii, transfer to the port, the crossing to Capri, a guided orientation there and free time, then the return. A good part of the eight hours is spent travelling.
They are crossings. Water and waste ran down the roadway, so pedestrians stepped over on raised blocks, spaced so that cart axles could pass between them.
A great deal. Pompeii preserved bar tabs, love notes, complaints and insults, plus election posters painted by professionals who also listed each candidate's backers — so we know who stood and who supported them.
A teenager watching from across the bay, who wrote it up some twenty-five years later in two letters and compared the ash column to a pine tree. His uncle sailed towards the eruption to help and died at Stabiae.
A pipeline along the seabed from the mainland. The island has no river or usable spring, so for two thousand years everyone drank rainwater collected off roofs into cisterns cut in rock.
The first emperor wanted it and gave Naples the much larger island of Ischia in exchange. It remained imperial property for the next century, and his successor governed from villas on the island for a decade.
Roughly forty minutes in each direction by hydrofoil, from the port near Pompeii out to Marina Grande, and the same again coming back in the afternoon.