Roman History Tour

[HISTORICUS]

Ave,

I'm a tour operator based in New Orleans who specializes in special interest tours. I'm putting together a series of Ancient History Tours with 4 itineraries: Rome, Greece, Egypt and Ancient Israel. The first tours will start in the fall of 2008. I would like to receive some input from forum members regarding the itinerary and also seek help finding tour guide / lecturers and people who could help me market the tours. The tours are intended for the general educated public with a interest in history. Thank you.

[Viggen]

Ave,

I'm a tour operator based in New Orleans who specializes in special interest tours. I'm putting together a series of Ancient History Tours with 4 itineraries: Rome, Greece, Egypt and Ancient Israel. The first tours will start in the fall of 2008. I would like to receive some input from forum members regarding the itinerary and also seek help finding tour guide / lecturers and people who could help me market the tours. The tours are intended for the general educated public with a interest in history. Thank you.

 

Hello Historicus, thanks for your post here, this could be interesting;

 

Shall we focus on Rome first?

How many days will this tour be?

How many stops (locations) are there planned on this tour?

 

Is this just for people in the US or could people from say Europe skip the flight and jump right on the starting point of the tour?

 

cheers

viggen

[HISTORICUS]

Ave,

I'm a tour operator based in New Orleans who specializes in special interest tours. I'm putting together a series of Ancient History Tours with 4 itineraries: Rome, Greece, Egypt and Ancient Israel. The first tours will start in the fall of 2008. I would like to receive some input from forum members regarding the itinerary and also seek help finding tour guide / lecturers and people who could help me market the tours. The tours are intended for the general educated public with a interest in history. Thank you.

 

Hello Historicus, thanks for your post here, this could be interesting;

 

Shall we focus on Rome first?

How many days will this tour be?

How many stops (locations) are there planned on this tour?

 

Is this just for people in the US or could people from say Europe skip the flight and jump right on the starting point of the tour?

 

cheers

viggen

 

Hello,

 

The tour will be open to all interested people who understand english, as this is the language in which it will be conducted. I'm thinking of a duration of 11-13 days, and I'm hesitating between starting and ending in Rome and cover only Italy, or starting for example in Lyon, then go down to Provence (there's a lot of interesting Roman sites there) and continue to Italy. At first I was even considering starting in London, but it might make the tour too expensive because of transportation. Your thoughts are welcome.

[Maladict]

Hello,

 

The tour will be open to all interested people who understand english, as this is the language in which it will be conducted. I'm thinking of a duration of 11-13 days, and I'm hesitating between starting and ending in Rome and cover only Italy, or starting for example in Lyon, then go down to Provence (there's a lot of interesting Roman sites there) and continue to Italy. At first I was even considering starting in London, but it might make the tour too expensive because of transportation. Your thoughts are welcome.

 

I would really hate having to rush through all of Italy, let alone France, in less than two weeks.

Let's say you'd effectively have 12 days, excluding the trip to and from Rome.

You'll need at the very least four days for Rome itself, which leaves eight.

A few day trips from Rome would be in order, let's say one to Ostia, one to Hadrian's Villa and Praeneste and one to Cerveteri and Tarquinia. Five days left. Pompeii is a must, and you might as well rebase to Naples. So that's one day for Pompeii, one day for Herculaneum and nearby sites (Boscoreale, Oplontis, Stabiae), one day for Naples itself, one day for the campi Flegrei (Cumae, Baia, Pozzuoli) and then there's just a single day left. An agonizing choice between many of the great sites that still remain in the proximity of Rome and Naples: Capua, Benevento, Capri, Nemi, Albano Laziale, Terracina, Gaeta, Veii etc etc. That's 12 days of top tier Roman sites, all within an hour's driving from Rome and Naples. What's the point in crossing half of Europe, too essentially see less because you lose so much time in transit and changing hotels every day? Just my 2 cents.

[Lost_Warrior]

I would really hate having to rush through all of Italy, let alone France, in less than two weeks.

Let's say you'd effectively have 12 days, excluding the trip to and from Rome.

You'll need at the very least four days for Rome itself, which leaves eight.

A few day trips from Rome would be in order, let's say one to Ostia, one to Hadrian's Villa and Praeneste and one to Cerveteri and Tarquinia. Five days left. Pompeii is a must, and you might as well rebase to Naples. So that's one day for Pompeii, one day for Herculaneum and nearby sites (Boscoreale, Oplontis, Stabiae), one day for Naples itself, one day for the campi Flegrei (Cumae, Baia, Pozzuoli) and then there's just a single day left. An agonizing choice between many of the great sites that still remain in the proximity of Rome and Naples: Capua, Benevento, Capri, Nemi, Albano Laziale, Terracina, Gaeta, Veii etc etc. That's 12 days of top tier Roman sites, all within an hour's driving from Rome and Naples. What's the point in crossing half of Europe, too essentially see less because you lose so much time in transit and changing hotels every day? Just my 2 cents.

 

This is a VERY good point.

 

Are you thinking of doing separate tours? Or one tour including all of the places you mentioned?

 

ETA: You also need to consider cost. I'm not sure what "audience" you are going for here, but I'm assuming you want this to be easily accessible. Instead of adding more time to one tour (making it far more expensive I would imagine) you might want to consider doing multiple smaller tours (one just in Rome, for instance. You could go to all of the landmarks in Rome and maybe a few of those close by.)

Edited January 22, 2008 by Lost_Warrior

[HISTORICUS]

I would really hate having to rush through all of Italy, let alone France, in less than two weeks.

Let's say you'd effectively have 12 days, excluding the trip to and from Rome.

You'll need at the very least four days for Rome itself, which leaves eight.

A few day trips from Rome would be in order, let's say one to Ostia, one to Hadrian's Villa and Praeneste and one to Cerveteri and Tarquinia. Five days left. Pompeii is a must, and you might as well rebase to Naples. So that's one day for Pompeii, one day for Herculaneum and nearby sites (Boscoreale, Oplontis, Stabiae), one day for Naples itself, one day for the campi Flegrei (Cumae, Baia, Pozzuoli) and then there's just a single day left. An agonizing choice between many of the great sites that still remain in the proximity of Rome and Naples: Capua, Benevento, Capri, Nemi, Albano Laziale, Terracina, Gaeta, Veii etc etc. That's 12 days of top tier Roman sites, all within an hour's driving from Rome and Naples. What's the point in crossing half of Europe, too essentially see less because you lose so much time in transit and changing hotels every day? Just my 2 cents.

 

This is a VERY good point.

 

Are you thinking of doing separate tours? Or one tour including all of the places you mentioned?

 

ETA: You also need to consider cost. I'm not sure what "audience" you are going for here, but I'm assuming you want this to be easily accessible. Instead of adding more time to one tour (making it far more expensive I would imagine) you might want to consider doing multiple smaller tours (one just in Rome, for instance. You could go to all of the landmarks in Rome and maybe a few of those close by.)

Thank you so much Maladict for your kind suggestions. Lost Warrior, because our tour is also targeted to the American public, we need to spend enough time in Europe to make it worth the cost of airfare, so a length of 12 days is probably an optimum, being as it is a week between two weekends. In the past, I have run a WW2 tour starting in London and ending in Berlin in 13 days, and it went very well.

I will post the itinerary in the near future and will be open to any suggestions as to locations to visit, etc.

Incidentally, I've been looking for a restaurant that serves Roman food, is anyone familiar with such a place?

Thanks