2026 Vergilian Society Tours
The Vergilian Society is offering these tours for 2026
For more detailed information about a tour, please contact the tour director. Registration for the 2026 season will begin in September 2025. Email vergiliansociety@gmail.com with any questions.
Two Gauls: Northern Italy and Alpine France
June 16-27, 2026
Director: Raymond Capra
This tour will explore the immediate north of the Roman Republic, Cisalpine, and Transalpine Gaul. Now a region that crosses the border between France and Italy. The visits include many cities with Gallic origins and Roman additions which represent the assimilation of the region into the Roman world. The military aspect of this assimilation is represented in gates and triumphal markers that celebrate the Roman conquest. The twelve-day tour will begin in Milan, visiting Novara, Torino, Susa, Asti, Cuneo, Nice and other cities. The trip will include a train ride through the French-Italian Alps.
Contact the Director: Raymond Capra
Roman Otium on the Bay of Naples: A Study Tour for K-12 Teachers
July 5-16, 2026
Directors: Jennifer Sheridan Moss and Jennifer Luongo
Leisure was an important part of life for the Roman elite, as we know, but a certain amount of leisure time was an expectation for the lower classes as well. This tour, designed for K-12 teachers but open to all, will explore the connections between our remaining literary and archaeological evidence concerning otium in an area that the Romans themselves considered a leisure paradise, the Bay of Naples. The tour will focus on expanding knowledge of Roman culture in a way that will enhance instruction for teachers and excite anyone interested in ancient Italian culture. Readings will expand the canon from which teachers can draw lessons for their students (for AP Latin teachers, we will present some options for Teachers Choice reading selections). Teachers of all pedagogical approaches are welcome as a diversity of pedagogical ideas will contribute greatly to our curricular work.
Survivors of Vesuvius: An Exploration of Post-Eruption Campania
July 12-22, 2026
Director: Steven L. Tuck
So often the story told of ancient Campania ends with the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum. In this tour, we will start at those two cities but then move to the post-eruption period exploring the communities around the Bay of Naples in the aftermath of the eruption. On our departure from Rome, we will visit Ostia to see the community of one of the most successful of survivor families that founded the Temple of Serapis and changed the religious face of that city. The tour in Campania starts at Pompeii and Herculaneum to establish the background for the eruption and to see the results of the eruption itself. Next, we hike up Vesuvius, examining the geology, and reading the letters of Pliny the Younger. After that, we explore the cities, villas, and farms that survived the eruption and follow the paths of some of the survivors themselves. These sites include the villas at Stabiae and the cities of Cumae, Puteoli, Naples (both the city and the National Archaeological Museum), Misenum, Baia, and Capua.
Greco-Roman Spain
December 27, 2026-January 10, 2027
Director: Raymond Capra
This winter tour will visit Catalunya, Spain to explore the development and interaction of three distinct cultures, theIberians, Greeks, and Romans. Iberia became part of the greater Mediterranean world with the arrival of the first Phoenician traders who arrived in the late ninth/ early eighth centuries BCE. The first Greek traders were there by the middle of the eighth century. In the early sixth Greeks founded a small city on the northeastern shore of the peninsula, always called by the name that connotes its mercantile origin, Emporion. In the late third century BCE this city becomes the entry point for the Roman conquest of the Peninsula at the onset of the Second Punic War. This tour will follow the eastern coast of Spain from Barcelona to Valencia and Alicante. These latter cities are near the heart of the Iberian culture. Furthermore, the tour will take place during the Christmas holidays, and Spain as a Catholic country will be adorned in full seasonal regalia
Alexander the Great, from Pella to Gordion
June 29-July 15, 2026
Director: Andrew L. Goldman
The trip has been designed to cover the route traced by Alexander the Great between 334 and 333 BC, as he proceeded from his home at Pella in Greece into central Anatolia, to the site where he cut the Gordian Knot. As this segment of his long journey was an especially significant period in the formation of his identity and his growth as a leader of the Macedonians, this trip will explore Alexander’s development as an individual amid the landscape in which he traveled. Participants will begin the journey in Greece, in beautiful Thessalonica, with visits to Pella and the Royal Tombs at Vergina as the first stop. After stopping to visit Phillippi, the tour will cross the border into Turkey, then head off by bus to cross the Hellespont and begin tracing the path of the Macedonian army through Anatolia. Major sites along the western coast of Turkey in the Troad, Mysia, Lydia, Ionia, and Caria will include Troy, the Granicus River, Sardis, Ephesus, Priene, Miletus, and Halicarnassus.
The trip will then proceed westward into ancient Lycia and the sites of Telmessus, Xanthus, Patara, and Phaselis, before descending into ancient Pamphylia and to the modern city of Antalya. Visits there to Perge, Aspendos, and Side will be followed by a swing inland through ancient Pisidia and Phrygia, with stops to explore Termessos, Sagalassus, Pessinus, and Gordion. The bus trip will end in Ankara, the capital of modern Turkey, with a tour of the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, arguably the best museum in the country. That same day the group will fly to Istanbul and visit the Archaeology Museum to view the collection (including the famous Alexander Sarcophagus). For guests who wish to extend their trip following the official conclusion of the tour, opportunities will be available to explore Istanbul and/or Cappadocia.
Kind Words from Students
Although very excited, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I departed for Campania. However, I had an amazing trip and my time at the Villa Vergiliana will undoubtedly influence my future teaching in a variety of ways.
Lottie Mortimer
“Tomorrow I will go home, and back at school, I will tell my fellow teachers about the Villa Vergiliana. We will try to work out some plans to involve a study trip in our program of internationaliz-ation at our school. I really hope this will be possible.
Marian Heesen
“I return to Oxford ready to evangelise about Villa Vergiliana and all it represents, and sincerely hope to return, this time bringing a school party so I can share with my pupils and colleagues what I have experienced.