Herculaneum, wine tour and Mt. Vesuvius from Salerno port

You will meet your driver at the Port of Salerno and making your way to the archeological site of Herculaneum for a visit of Herculaneum, wine tour and Mt. Vesuvius from Salerno port. Salerno is a city of 140.000 inhabitants and is mostly known for the Schola Medica Salernitana, 9th century, the first medical school in the world. In the recent history Salerno is known because some of the Allies landings during Operation Avalanche in 1943 occurred here. Coming out from the port looking up you will admire the medieval castle Arechi, VIII sec., that dominates the city skyline. passing the little and picturesque town of Vietri sul mare, in few minutes you will be on the highway driving north towards the bay of Naples to reach Herculaneum, the ancient Roman city destroyed by a terrible eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79AD. the highway crosses the plain of the river Sarno, one of the most fertile in Italy, dominated by mt.Vesuvius, still an active volcano, last eruption was in March 1944. Herculaneum was discovered by chance in 1709, is one of the best preserved ancient cities in the world, destroyed by the same eruption that buried Pompeii. the city was covered by a mud slide, mixed with pyroclastic material.

The excavations are surrounded by the modern city here we can visit the houses where the rich aristocratic Roman families spent their holidays and admire the carbonized wood furniture of 2000 years ago. you will see the ancient beach, where they found the bones of 300 people, the streets, shops, elegant thermal baths, the palextra, beautiful mosaics like the one of Neptune and Amphitrite and frescoes, like the one in the Sacellum.

After the first visit of Herculaneum, wine tour and Mt. Vesuvius from Salerno port, the day continues to a vineyard at the foot of Mount Vesuvius for a light lunch in a beautiful panoramic terrace where you can taste the food and the wines of the area and finish with a distilled grappa of apricot. The area is famous for wine since the Roman times, when they built farm houses all around the mountain. The combination of the geologic conformation of Vesuvius slopes, the rare characteristics of volcanic soil and a marvelous microclimate make the territory one of Italy’s most interesting viti-cultural areas,. The Lacryma Christi, ( literally "tears of Christ") is the name of the wine produced here. According to the legend when Lucifer and the fallen angels were cast out from heaven, they grabbed a piece of it as they were forced to leave. As Lucifer fell, chunks of paradise landed on Mt. Vesuvius. When God saw what had happened, he cried. His tears became vines on the slopes of the volcano.

After the second visit of the Herculaneum, wine tour and Mt. Vesuvius from Salerno port, you will taken to Mt Vesuvius mt 1281, the mountain road is very panoramic and during the drive you will see many sculptures, made of lava rocks by local and international artists. the mountain is an active volcano, classed as a complex stratovolcano, because its eruptions typically involve explosive eruptions as well as pyroclastic flows.

Mount Vesuvius is considered to be one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world due to the large population of the province of Naples, driving up you will pass the observatory, first volcanological observatory in the world, built during the reign of Ferdinand II of Borbon in 1841, and the last petrified lava flow of the 1944 eruption. by car you will stop at 1000mt. from here you can walk up to the top of the mountain, the hike is graded 'easy to moderate' by trekking guides, and permit you to look inside the crater, where sometimes is possible to see rising fumes. At the end of the tour you will be returned to the Port of Salerno.