A Tyrrhenian Adventure: Ancient Italy & Sardinia Tour with Dr. David Miano (15 days)
An Expert-Led Archaeological Odyssey with Dr. David Miano
May 3–17, 2026 | 15 Days / 14 Nights
Strictly limited to only 25 participants
Tour menu:
Tour menu:
Overview & Date
This is not a vacation. It’s an expedition.
This journey is a deliberate exploration of the deep past of the western Mediterranean—designed for travelers who want to understand the ancient world, not simply admire famous sites from a distance.
Led throughout by acclaimed historian, author, educator, and YouTuber Dr. David Miano, this expedition traces the ancient Tyrrhenian world as it actually developed, following the interconnected histories of the Romans, Etruscans, Phoenicians, and Nuragic peoples across Central Italy and Sardinia.
Rather than rushing between iconic landmarks, we move the way early explorers and antiquarians once did: walking ruins in context, approaching museums as field laboratories, treating each site as part of a larger historical puzzle rather than an isolated stop.
Every location is examined within its broader cultural, political, and religious framework—linking trade routes, sacred landscapes, and civilizations that are rarely explored together on a single itinerary.
This expedition is designed for travelers who value context, continuity, and depth, and who want to be guided on site by a credentialed scholar for the full duration of the journey.
Dates: May 3–17, 2026
Duration: 15 Days / 14 Nights
Group Size: Maximum 25 participants (hard cap)
May 3 – 17, 2026
A TYRRHENIAN ADVENTURE: ANCIENT ITALY & SARDINIA with Dr. David Mianio (15 days)
Why This Journey
Designed as a genuine historical expedition
This isn’t your average sightseeing trip filled with tourist traps and generic photo ops.
Instead, you’ll explore these ancient cities through a historian’s lens—digging deeper into their cultural complexity, architectural ingenuity, and historical context. With Dr. David Miano as your guide, you’ll gain an evidence-based perspective on the origins, timelines, and inner workings of some of the most enigmatic civilizations in the ancient world.
What makes this journey different
Expert-led throughout
Dr. David Miano travels with the group for the full duration of the expedition, providing on-site interpretation, historical context, and informal discussions that connect each site into a coherent narrative. His work offers a clear-eyed alternative to speculation-driven narratives, bringing clarity and depth to the study of the ancient world.
Portions of the journey may also be documented for his World of Antiquity educational travel series.
Sites most tours never reach
Beyond Rome and Florence, this journey includes Tarquinia, Banditaccia, Città del Tufo, Alatri, Su Nuraxi, Turris Libisonis, the Etruscan Pyramid of Bomarzo, and other locations typically absent from standard Italy itineraries.
Italy and Sardinia as a single cultural world
Two overnight sea crossings with private cabins allow us to follow the ancient Tyrrhenian sphere as it functioned historically—by sea, not modern borders—connecting mainland Italy with Sardinia’s Nuragic civilization.
Depth over pace
This journey favors time on site, context, and discussion over rushed schedules and surface-level commentary. Each location is approached with intention, allowing space for understanding rather than ticking off an item on a bucket list.
Small group
Transportation, accommodations, ferry capacity, and site logistics strictly limit this journey to 25 participants. This is a hard cap and cannot be expanded once space is allocated.
Whether you’re a lifelong learner, archaeology enthusiast, or follower of the World of Antiquity YouTube channel, this is your chance to study the past where it happened– alongside the scholar whose passion and precision bring it vividly to life.
Your Host
Led by Dr. David Miano
This journey is hosted by Dr. David Miano, historian, author, and educator, and the creator of World of Antiquity—a widely followed educational platform focused on ancient history, archaeology, and the ancient Mediterranean world.
Throughout the expedition, Dr. Miano will:
Provide on-site historical interpretation
Lead informal lectures and group discussions
Connect sites into broader cultural and historical frameworks
Engage directly with participants throughout the journey
This is not a passive experience—you are traveling with the scholar.
day-by-day itinerary
DAY
1
Day 1
May 3, 2026
Arrival in Rome
Reception at Rome Fiumicino Airport (FCO) and transfer to your hotel. Enjoy free time to relax and prepare for the journey ahead.
Overnight: Hotel Ripa, Rome
DAY
2
Day 2
May 4, 2026
Rome
We begin in the Roman Forum and Colosseum, working out how the heart of the empire was formed. The Capitoline Museums anchor what we’ve seen on the ground, using sculpture and inscriptions to show how Romans curated their own history.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch
Overnight: Hotel Ripa, Rome
DAY
3
Day 3
May 5, 2026
Rome
This day follows Rome outward and downward. Along the Appian Way, we walk the arteries that connected Rome to its empire, then descend into the Catacombs of St. Calixtus to explore early Christian burial practices and identity under Roman rule. We wind up at the monumental Baths of Caracalla, where engineering and leisure collide on an immense scale.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch
Overnight: Hotel Ripa, Rome
DAY
4
Day 4
May 6, 2026
Rome
From the engineering triumph of the Pantheon to the vast Baths of Diocletian, we follow Rome’s evolving urban fabric. The Palazzo Massimo sharpens our view of Roman society through art and material culture, and the Vatican Museums show how the ancient world was preserved, transformed, and reinterpreted.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch
Overnight: Hotel Ripa, Rome
DAY
5
Day 5
May 7, 2026
Rome to L’Aquila
At Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli outside Rome, we’ll see an emperor’s attempt to build the world in miniature, personal vision brought to life on an extraordinary scale. We then drive southward to Alatri, where the focus shifts to massive polygonal walls whose origins predate Rome itself.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch
Overnight: My Suite Hotel, L’Aquila
DAY
6
Day 6
May 8, 2026
L’Aquila to Assisi
At Amiternum, a Roman city abandoned and largely absorbed by the landscape, we explore theaters and streets where silence has replaced civic life. The isolated Etruscan Pyramid of Bomarzo pulls us into a wooded ritual setting whose purpose remains unresolved, before Spello’s Villa of Mosaics brings us face to face with a buried Roman villa, preserved beneath the modern town.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch
Overnight: Hotel Le Grazie, Assisi
DAY
7
Day 7
May 9, 2026
Assisi to Florence
Today we take a literal descent into an earlier Assisi. The Assisi Archaeological Museum deepens that encounter, showing how Roman urban life persisted here long before the city’s Christian identity took shape. In Cortona, the Accademia Etrusca pulls us decisively into the Etruscan world, grounding the civilization in its own terms rather than as a prelude to Rome. At Fiesole, overlooking Florence, we end the day among Etruscan walls, a Roman theater, and a sanctuary site.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch
Overnight: Hotel Villa Neroli, Florence
DAY
8
Day 8
May 10, 2026
Florence to Piombino
At the National Archaeological Museum in Florence, we confront the Etruscans at their most confident, through masterpieces like the Chimera of Arezzo and the Arringatore. In Volterra, the Museo Etrusco Mario Guarnacci immerses us in a city of the dead: hundreds of sculpted funerary urns lined face-to-face, turning individual mortality into a collective Etruscan civic statement. We end at Baratti and the Archaeological Park of Populonia, where tombs, fortifications, and iron-working installations unfold above the sea.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch
Overnight: TBD, Piombino
DAY
9
Day 9
May 11, 2026
Piombino to Civitavecchia
At Città del Tufo, we move through an Etruscan necropolis carved directly into living rock: streets of tombs cut into cliffsides, doorways opening onto chambers meant to mirror the world of the living. At the Necropolis of Tarquinia, the focus turns inward, descending into painted tombs whose vivid scenes of banquets, music, and movement preserve Etruscan beliefs about death.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Dinner
Overnight: Ferry to Olbia (onboard cabins)
DAY
10
Day 10
May 12, 2026
Northwestern Sardinia
In Turris Libisonis, a Roman port city facing the western Mediterranean, we’ll see how Rome anchored itself on the island. From there, the expedition pivots decisively backward in time. At Nuraghe Palmavera, a complex, multi-towered stone stronghold, and Nuraghe Losa, one of the most imposing and carefully built nuraghi on the island, we confront the Nuragic Civilization: a Bronze Age culture that built in stone on a monumental scale, long before Rome or Carthage arrived.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch
Overnight: Aquae Sinis Albergo Diffuso, Cabras
DAY
11
Day 11
May 13, 2026
Southern Sardinia
At Tharros, we walk through a frontier town shaped first by Phoenician settlers and later reworked by Carthaginians and Romans. The National Archaeological Museum of Cagliari brings our encounters into sharp focus, from Nuragic bronzetti and imported goods to Punic inscriptions and Roman sculpture. At Nora, one of the island’s earliest Phoenician foundations, we end the day among ruins that reveal how layers of identity accumulated instead of erasing one another.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch
Overnight: Holiday Inn, Cagliari
DAY
12
Day 12
May 14, 2026
Central Sardinia
At Tuvixeddu, one of the largest Carthaginian necropoleis in the Mediterranean, we move through a hillside honeycombed with rock-cut tombs. The focus then shifts inland to the heart of Nuragic power. Su Nuraxi di Barumini, a UNESCO World Heritage site, reveals a carefully planned, multi-phase stone complex that once anchored an entire community, while Nuraghe Arrubiu, among the largest ever built, pushes the limits of what this Bronze Age society could engineer.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch
Overnight: Hotel Sandalia, Nuoro
DAY
13
Day 13
May 15, 2026
Northeastern Sardinia
At Serra Orrios, we move through a Nuragic village shaped by shrines and communal ritual, where daily life and religious practice were inseparable. The Fonte Sacra di Su Tempiesu, a carefully engineered sacred spring, reveals how water itself became sacred architecture. At Sant’Andrea Priu, we enter rock-cut tombs later transformed into Christian spaces, their reused chambers bearing witness to shifting meanings across millennia. We conclude at Santu Antine, one of Sardinia’s most imposing nuraghi.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Overnight: Ferry to Civitavecchia (onboard cabins)
DAY
14
Day 14
May 16, 2026
Return to the Mainland
At Cerveteri’s Banditaccia Necropolis, we walk through an Etruscan city built underground, frozen at the moment when an independent world still believed in its own future. At Veio, Rome’s greatest early rival, we explore a city whose defeat changed the course of Italian history. We conclude at Ostia Antica, Rome’s port and lifeline, where streets of warehouses, taverns, and apartment blocks reveal the machinery of an empire.
Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch
Overnight: B&B Hotel Roma Fiumicino Fiera 2, Rome
DAY
15
Day 15
May 17, 2026
Departure
The expedition concludes as participants depart, carrying with them not a checklist of sites, but a changed sense of how the ancient Mediterranean actually worked on the ground.
What's Included
✔ Daily on-site interpretation and lectures led by Dr. David Miano
✔ 15-day / 14-night guided archaeological journey across Italy & Sardinia
✔ All accommodations (3–4★ Premium & boutique properties)
✔ Daily breakfast
✔ Daily lunches (except arrival & departure days)
✔ Private transportation throughout Italy & Sardinia
✔ Arrival transfer in Rome on Day 1
✔ Overnight ferry crossings with private cabins, including dinner and breakfast on ferry nights
✔ Entrance fees to all scheduled archaeological sites and museums
✔ Local and English-speaking guides where required
✔ Group transfers and full logistics coordination
✔ Dedicated tour coordination throughout the journey
✔ Headset system for guided site visits
What’s Not Included
✖ Travel insurance (strongly recommended)
✖ Personal expenses (laundry, minibar, souvenirs, etc.)
✖ Beverages, except for ½ liter of water per person at lunch
✖ City / tourist taxes (payable locally upon arrival)
✖ Gratuities and tipping for local guides, drivers, and service staff
✖ Any services, meals, or items not expressly listed under “What’s Included”
Pricing & Availability
$9,495 USD per person
(based on double occupancy)
$1,895 USD — Deposit to reserve your place
$1,605 USD — Private room upgrade (optional)
Availability is strictly limited to 25 participants.
Limited Availability — Advance Commitment Required
This custom, small group archaeological expedition is capped at 25 participants due to hotel availability, ferry schedules, and site logistics across mainland Italy and Sardinia.
Once space is allocated and vendor commitments are finalized, no additional places can be added.
If this journey is of interest, waiting is not advised.
Reserve Your Place
Tour Options:
-
ONE-TIME PAYMENT (Single payment for the full tour)
$9,495.00Add to cartPay in full for the Tyrrhenian Adventure: Ancient Italy & Sardinia tour in one single transaction. No additional tour payments required.
-
INITIAL DEPOSIT (Reserve your place)
$1,895.00Add to cartReserve your place on the Tyrrhenian Adventure: Ancient Italy & Sardinia tour with a non-refundable deposit.
-
PRIVATE ROOM UPGRADE (Solo traveler add-on)
$1,605.00Add to cartUpgrade to a private, single-occupancy room for the full duration of the Tyrrhenian Adventure: Ancient Italy & Sardinia tour.
Any questions?
We are happy to answer any questions that you have may have about this Adept Expedition.
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