Your driver will meet you at your hotel or at Naples train station and take you to the ancient site of Herculaneum.  This can be done as a half-day tour, or as a stop when transferring between Naples and the Amalfi Coast.

At the entrance to the site, the driver will introduce you to your guide, who will lead you down into the ruins of the ancient town where it lay buried beneath the modern town until it was rediscovered in 1709.

During the eruption of AD79, the residents of wealthy Herculaneum had more time to evacuate than the ones to the south in Pompeii, where volcanic material hit first.  While Pompeii was hit by volcanic rock that smashed the houses, to the west Herculaneum was covered by surges of burning gases and ash which preserved, rather than destroyed the houses.

The houses and their decoration are well preserved, including wooden doors and beams (and even a boat) which were carbonized by the heat.  Your guide will take you to visit some of the most impressive examples, including the elaborate Villa of the Papyri and the central bath house.

Below the town, where the port was stood, 400 skeletons were discovered in the 80s and 90s of people who were waiting for boats to return to take them to safety.  The sight of these skeletons hurdled together in the moment that the first wave of heat sweapt from the volcano, is quite moving.