Pompeii & Herculaneum Private Tour: Fast-track, Winery & Lunch

Understanding the significance of these two sites is so much more interesting than wandering around. With a guide, and we had an excellent guide, you can talk about the sites, the history and the guide highlights the more significant sites, and just some fun asides.

One of the best tours we have ever taken. Picked up by our driver, Gio in a nice Mercedes van and taken out to Pompeii to meet our tour guide Vincenzo. Gio gave us an informative tour of Naples. Vincenzo was absolutley fabulous. He has a PhD in Art History along with education on Archeology. He quickly got us on to the site and gave us a tremendous tour. We talked about the events and what happened that day along with gaining an understanding of the city and its history. He kept us informed and interested throughout our walk around the site. We then moved over to Herculaneum and learned how that site is so much different from the Pompeii site. Again, tremendous information and knowledge. The day flew by!!! After the two tours were taken by Gio to the Cantina de Vesuvius for a wonderful lunch and wine tasting. I know it is a little pricey, but watching the large groups move around the standard locations at the site made it all the more worth it as we moved down alleys and side streets to see the site. A great visit!!!

Great tour for people with limited time. We were picked up at the cruise port by our driver, Alfonso. He was extremely friendly and helpful. He talked to us about Naples history and their food on the way to Herculaneum. We then met our guide, Carmine, who is an archeologist. He provided an excellent tour of Herculaneum and Pompeii. He is so knowledgeable! He also helped us with tickets into Pompeii when the policy for entrance changed that day. After our tours, Alfonso organized an incredible lunch for us. I was able to make the pizza we ate. The restaurant owner then brought out gnocchi, pasta and lemon cake. All delicious! Alfonso then took us back to our ship with plenty of time to board. Definitely recommend this tour!

Highly recommend this tour. Easy pickup and drop off from our hotel. Danilo was an excellent tour guide. Extremely knowledgeable and made the tour very memorable.

Our driver, Chido, was excellent! On time, luxury car, very pleasant energy. Our tour guide, Enzo, was enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the history of Pompeii and Herculaneum! He even kept the interest of my husband who reluctantly entertains my fascination of history. I highly recommend this private tour of Pompeii and Herculaneum because the crowds are insane!

Anna was terrific. Scorching hot day but she kept us in the shade and was very attentive. Great tour guide!

One of the best tours I’ve been on. Carmine was excellent. Couldn’t have had a better tour at both sites. He was very knowledgeable, professional, and efficient. Ask for him, you won’t regret it!

Ciro and Ciro were both great. All of their knowledge and combined history was really exceptional. They went out of their way to make us feel welcome and comfortable.

We liked the relative quiet and slower pace of Herculaneum vs Pompeii. Guide and driver were excellent and fun to be with. I was surprised with the large size of the excavation at Pompeii. The antiquariums at both sites are not to be missed. Consider an additional visit on your own to the National Archaeological Museum of Naples to see artifacts from Pompeii.

Our driver and guide were both fantastic. Our cruise ship was in port for the day. Pick up was easy and on time, and drop off was comfortably before our ships departure. Guide was very knowledgeable and happily and easily answered all questions. Pompeii can be very busy, but our guide watched where large groups were turning, and turned us in a different direction, so we never felt crowded and could always clearly hear her. I have mobility issues, and our guide was very patient and helpful. We had a wonderful day. I highly recommend this tour.

Barbara was able to give us the highlights of Herculaneum and Pompeii - as well as the history and detail behind what we were looking at. Pompeii is huge and if you didn’t have a guide, it would be absolutely overwhelming. You could spend hours there and miss the high points without guidance. Alfonso drove us from Praiano and was full of information that was fun to learn on the way to/from our tour.

Anne and Alphonso made our day. Anne was our tour guide for Herculaneum and Pompeii. She was very knowledgable and delivered information in an easy and entertaining way. An excellent guide. Alphonso was our driver. Again, very informative about the local area of Naples and he directed us to a local restaurant where we sampled local tomatoes with mozarella, traditional wood fired pizza and samples of lasagne and gnocci, followed by a light lemon cake and, of course, limoncello. A wonderful day for our family party of six.

Ettore our driver and Anna our guide were fantastic! Anna has deep historical knowledge of both cities. Herculaneum was our favorite as it was not crowded compared to Pompeii. Anna started with the museums at both sites to give an overview. In Pompei she took us to many houses that the tour bus crowds didn’t visit. In many houses it was just us or a few people. Overall a very excellent review. I highly recommend Anna and Ettore

What a great day visiting these famous ruins! Alphonso picked us up and chauffeured us to the sites and then took us for a lovely wine tasting at Rosso the vineyard. Massimo was our tour guide for the ruins. He was so knowledgeable and approachable. These two gentlemen really made our day perfect!

Wow! Our guide, Daniella, was fantastic.!! Her deep knowledge and expertise left no question unanswered! Our driver, Gabriel, got us to the sights and back to our hotel with pleasant and fun conversation on each leg of the full day trip!

Both sites are worth the visit and this experience allows you to do both in one day. Our driver changed the starting pickup time at the last minute and cut one hour off from our day. We did not have time for lunch and felt rushed. Guides at both sites were great and spent 2 hours at each site but skipped a lot of places we could have found interesting. I think you will be able to see more of both sites if you go there with a taxi and get the audio tour. Both sites are very manageable on foot so self-guide should not be an issue. Be aware that admission tickets are not included so you will have to buy those at the ticket booth. Thankfully there were no lines on the day we went.

Our guide, Daniela, was wonderful and very knowledgeable about both sites! We really enjoyed visiting both parks.

This was the best tour of our week in Italy and honestly, possibly ever - but I don’t want to sound like I’m overselling this. Everything was wonderful from start to finish. Andrea, our fantastic driver, met us right at the pier and returned us there at the end. He made our day entirely effortless. And Barbara - I can’t convey this enthusiastically enough - was an amazing guide. As a Latin nerd and archaeologist myself, I can confirm that she was extremely knowledgeable and provided accurate information, but the best thing about this tour is that she was also a brilliant story-teller and it was obvious how passionate she is about the sites and archaeology in general. She brought the sites to life with her “weird facts” and explanations of how we understand life to have been in Pompeii and Herculaneum. I was worried my adult family (mom, dad, older brother, our SOs) would be bored by me dragging them through these sites for my selfish enjoyment, but they genuinely loved the tour as much as I did.

Our guide, Ricardo, was incredibly knowledgeable and professional. As an Archeologist, he is passionate about what he does and his passion for these two historical sites is contagious. We were happy to go to from one site and then to the other without a break and he was very accommodating. His descriptions were very vivid and memorable. Our driver, who picked us up and returned us to our hotel, was punctual and patient as we toured and the car was clean and comfortable and he offered us water and mints :-) Grazie mille!

Ever since seeing a traveling exhibit on Pompeii at a local museum, my husband has wanted to visit the actual site. To get as much from the experience for ourselves and our two sons, age 13 and 17, as possible, we decided to book a private tour. To really understand the eruption, visiting Herculaneum as well is a must. Both were preserved in different ways, Herculaneum by lava and Pompeii by ash. Our driver, Enzo, was right on time As he drove us to Herculaneum he gave some commentary on Naples and pointed out the sites. Upon arrival he parked exactly where Barbara, our archaeologist guide, was waiting. Seeing Herculaneum first and then Pompeii was perfect. Herculaneum is smaller but differently preserved. Pompeii is huge and the only way to understand it's scale is to go in person. Being it was so large, we were very happy to have a guide to show us everything, and to answer all our questions. Barbara also knew where the large tours were going so she was able to move us around so we avoided them as much as possible. Barbara was a fountain of information. She kept saying "I have one more small thing to show you" and then would point our some small detail, like chariot ruts in the streets or spots on fountains where the marble had rubbed down from the city's residents using them over time. I was so engrossed in everything that when we reached the exit, I was surprised, as I had no idea how much time had passed! Our tour started at 8:30 and ended about 2, (with a short break between the two sites for a snack) so it wasn't really an "all day tour." Enzo would have taken us for lunch if we wanted, but my sons were tired so we opted to head back to Naples Enzo and Barbara both did give suggestions for places to eat for the best pizza. All in all a great tour.

Our tour started in Herculaneum with our guide. She was more than just a guide, a student of both sites. As she showed us the "Beverly Hills" of the area, she relayed a great number of facts that my family took in and processed. To my surprise, moving to Pompeii was different than expected, while Herculaneum was more preserved, Pompeii made up with it in size. We had no idea a large of a city Pompeii was. I was expecting the ruins to be as much as we saw in the first half. I was wrong. You need to experience this yourself.

We booked this tour through Viator but our receipt said the tour operator was Feelnaples di Domenico De Cristofaro so I'm assuming this is the same thing since it's also worded the same. For the 4 of us on a Tuesday in August, this tour cost us a little over $800 but if this place (Pompeii and/or Herculaneum) is a huge bucket list item for you, I think you'd be happy spending that. We certainly will be doing something very similar the next time we go back to Pompeii as I feel like it was the best way to experience it. Our driver came and picked us up at the address we provided. It was a nice van, beautifully air conditioned (I think that was the only place we experienced air conditioning in our entire time in Naples). We drove the half hour to Pompeii, where our guide was waiting for us near the entrance. We still had to buy our entrance tickets but because we were with our guide, we got into a separate line with no one in it so we breezed through. Our tour through Pompeii was amazing. She had so much knowledge and pointed out so many things you would never notice. We would ask the most random questions and boom! She knew the answer! You could tell she loved archeology and I think us asking questions was more engaging than her just rattling off information (though she was really good at doing that too). After 2 hours, we left Pompeii and went to a little restaurant not far from Herculaneum. It wasn't the best restaurant but I loved the authenticity of it. We invited the guide & driver to come in with us but I think since they do this for a living, they're used to packing their own lunches or something. They parked in a little lot across the street and when we finished our lunch about an hour later and walked over, they were chilling outside, talking. We were close enough to Herculaneum that we just walked down the street to it. Again, the guide was amazing. She was giddy here, saying it was her favorite and it showed in her face and mannerisms. As we were leaving, around 3pm, after being there for around 2 hours, a thunderstorm was heading our way so it was kinda perfect timing, having been picked up at 9am. The guide must have some way of getting back because that's where she parted ways with us and our driver took us back to our place in Naples. My only complaint about the tour was even though they outline the overall times, they don't break it down. I had no idea that we would only be in Pompeii for 2 hours so when we were in our final spot there and she said how we were leaving, I instantly panicked. I didn't feel like I had taken enough pictures or fully appreciated it quite yet. So I would advise to make that clear at the beginning of the tour so people have their expectations managed.

An excellent tour, from the driver who picked us up at the hotel, to the tour guide. A+ all the way around and very accommodating when we had to delay the for about an hour due to one of our parties illness.