More Info
Many tourists think Naples is just another port for their cruise ships, but it’s so much more! Naples may not be as visually exciting as Rome, as glamorous as Milan, or as picturesque as Florence, but the city offers a truly local experience. Naples is raw, high-octane energy—a place of soul-stirring art and panoramas, spontaneous conversations, and unexpected, inimitable elegance! This is a real-to-the-core Italian city, birthplace of pizza—at least half of any trip there should be spent eating it! A walk along the pedestrian-friendly Lungomare, the two-mile seafront promenade teeming with restaurants, is not to be missed. There’s even a funicular that takes you up to the top of the city for panoramic views of Mt. Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples. The city center, a UNESCO World Heritage site, dates back to 470 B.C. and has many incredible attractions to visit: three enormous castles, a royal palace, and more churches and cathedrals than you could ever imagine. And there are wonderful nearby places to visit too: Sorrento, the Amalfi coast, Capri, Herculaneum, and Pompeii.
Pompeii and nearby cities were buried in 79 A.D. by the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius. The disaster destroyed many things but also remarkably preserved much of Roman daily life by sealing enormous material culture under ash, volcanic pyroclasts, and flowing superheated mud. Even some carbonized wood beams and garden plant roots survived. We know more about Roman daily life and Roman art from these buried contexts around Pompeii than any other place. “Their great misfortune was our great fortune.” —Patrick Hunt
William H. Fredlund, the Director of the Institute, obtained his B.A. and M.A. from UCLA, where he specialized in European history and art history. He studied in Italy on a Fulbright Fellowship and completed a double Ph.D. in history and humanities at Stanford, specializing in Renaissance Italy. Dr. Fredlund has taught for UCLA, the University of Florence, Stanford, and UCSC Extension.
