01 Pompeii, Herculaneum and Vesuvius
18 compared from €64 typically 12h 4.63 average
A third of the catalogue and the trip that comes back highest in reviews. From €64 for a small group with an archaeologist, €104 typically, and the high-speed train versions cost more and save three hours of motorway. Two hours on site is the minimum and the ruins cover sixty-six hectares, so the guide is the difference between a walk and a visit. Herculaneum is smaller, better preserved and almost empty; pair it with Pompeii rather than choosing.
02 The Amalfi Coast, Sorrento, Positano and Capri
5 compared from €74 typically 13h 4.47 average
Thirteen to fifteen hours for four on the coast, from €74 by coach and €195 by train and boat. The road between Sorrento and Positano is single file in places and takes as long as the drive from Rome, which is what the three-star reviews are about. The versions that use the fast train to Naples and then a boat rate a full point higher than the ones that drive the whole way.
03 Tivoli, Villa d'Este and Hadrian's Villa
7 compared from €85 typically 6h 4.47 average
The half day nobody plans and everybody rates. From €85, median €95, five to six hours for two UNESCO sites forty minutes from the city: the fountain gardens of the Villa d'Este and the ruins of the villa Hadrian built himself. Ratings here reach five stars more often than anywhere else on this page. Go on a hot day, when the water and the shade are the point.
04 Florence, Orvieto and the wider region by train
14 compared from €40 typically 12h 4.58 average
Rome to Florence is ninety minutes on the fast train, which makes a day in Tuscany genuinely possible from €40, median €179. The Montepulciano wine days carry the most reviews of the group. Orvieto and Civita di Bagnoregio, the town on a collapsing tufa spur reached by footbridge, are the ones that rate near five. Ostia Antica, thirty minutes on the metro, is the cheapest ruin in the region and barely sold as a tour.
05 Private days inside Rome itself
9 compared from €160 typically 7h 4.61 average
Filed as day trips but never leaving the city: a driver, a guide and the Colosseum and Vatican in one run, from €160 with a €253 median for a group of two to six. They rate very highly and they are priced per vehicle rather than per person, so the maths only works for a family or four friends. For everyone else the same sites cost a fraction of that booked separately.
