12 Best Sights in Herculaneum (Ercolano), The Bay of Naples

In antiquity, the Casa dei Cervi was one of the first houses that visitors to the town would have passed as they entered the city from the seaward side. As in most top-notch town residences, however, the entranceway is plain and leads into a vestibulum, a small vestibule, that opens onto an open courtyard called a peristylium. The showpiece in this particular house is the garden area, surrounded by a so-called cryptoporticus embellished with fine still life frescoes and terminating in a partially reconstructed gazebo. Of course, prior to the eruption, the house would have had a fine view over the Bay of Naples.

The ruin of this house takes its name from the mosaic in back that still sports its bright blue coloring and adorns the wall of the small, secluded nymphaeum-triclinium (a dining room with a fountain). The mosaic depicts the following scene: according to legend, in the time-honored fashion of the Olympians, Neptune (or Poseidon) saw Amphitrite dancing with the Nereids on the island of Naxos, carried her off, and married her. The adjacent wall, in similar mosaic style, has a hunting scene of a stag being pursued by a dog. Annexed to the same house is a remarkably preserved wine shop, where amphorae still rest on carbonized wooden shelves.

Lying more than 50 feet below the present-day town of Ercolano, the ruins of Herculaneum are set among the acres of greenhouses that make this area an important European flower-growing center. In AD 79, the gigantic eruption of Vesuvius, which also destroyed Pompeii, buried the town under a tide of volcanic mud. The semiliquid pyroclastic surge seeped into the crevices and niches of every building, covering household objects, enveloping textiles and wood, and sealing all in a compact, airtight tomb. Excavation began in 1738 under King Charles of Bourbon, using tunnels. Digging was interrupted but recommenced in 1828, continuing into the following century. Today less than half of Herculaneum has been excavated. With contemporary Ercolano and the unlovely Resina Quarter sitting on top of the site, progress is limited. From the ramp leading down to Herculaneum's well-preserved edifices, you get a good overall view of the site, as well as an idea of the amount of volcanic debris that had to be removed to bring it to light.

About 5,000 people lived in Herculaneum when it was destroyed, many of them fishermen and craftsmen. Among the recent poignant discoveries of human remains was that of the blood-stained skeleton of a 40-something man found on the old beach in 2020. Experts believe he may have been trying to escape the 750°F--950°F atomic-bomb-like blast. He is clutching a small leather bag with a wooden box, from which a ring is protruding.

Although Herculaneum had only one-third the population of Pompeii and has been only partially excavated, what has been found is generally better preserved. In some cases you can even see the original wooden beams, doors, and staircases. Unfortunately, the Villa dei Papiri (Villa of Papyri) is currently closed to the public—this excavation outside the main site was built by Julius Caesar's father-in-law (with a replica built by Paul Getty in Malibu almost 2,000 years later). The building is named for almost 2,000 carbonized papyrus scrolls dug up here in the 18th century, leading scholars to believe that this may have been a study center or library. Also worth special attention are the carbonized remains within the Casa del Tramezzo di Legno (House of the Wooden Partition).

Be sure to stock up on refreshments beforehand; there is no food at the archaeological site. At the entrance, pick up a free map showing the gridlike layout of the dig, which is divided into numbered blocks, or insulae. Splurge on an audio guide app via  www.ercolano.tours (€10; adult and children's versions): the standard audio guide (€8 for one, €13 for two) may be available for those without a smartphone. You can also join a group with a local guide (around €15 per person). Most of the houses are open, and a representative cross section of domestic, commercial, and civic buildings can be seen. Check the website for the latest openings and news of recent excavation discoveries.

Explore the ruins by the terrace of Marcus Nonius Balbus, where the town's great benefactor is buried, and the Suburban Baths (undergoing restoration). Directly below, on the onetime seafront, in the barrel arches, which were once storage for boats, 300 skeletons of escaping residents were found in 1980.

An outstanding example of carbonized remains is found in the Casa del Tramezzo di Legno, as it has been prosaically labeled by archaeologists. Following renovation work in the mid-1st century AD, the house was designed to have a frontage on three sides of Insula III and included a number of storerooms, shops, and second-floor habitations. This suggests that the owner was a wealthy mercator, a member of the up-and-coming merchant class who was starting to edge the patricians out of their privileged positions. The airy atrium has a lovely garden. Look closely at the impluvium (a basin to collect rainwater) and above the open compluvium roof with dog's-head spouts). You'll see the original flooring below, which was later replaced with marble, perhaps after a change of owners. Next to the impluvium is an elegant marble table, or cartibulum, while behind is the tablinum (reception room), partially screened off by a wooden partition that would also have had hooks for hanging lucernae (lamps).

With dazzling "virtual" versions of Herculaneum's streets and squares and a multidimensional simulation of Vesuvius erupting, Herculaneum's 1st-century-meets-the-21st-century museum is a must for kids and adults alike. After stopping at the ticket office you descend, as in an excavation, to a floor below. You'll experience Herculaneum's Villa dei Papiri before and (even more dramatically) during the eruption, courtesy of special effects: enter "the burning cloud" of AD 79; then emerge, virtually speaking, inside Pompeii's House of the Faun, which can be seen both as it is and as it was for two centuries BC. The next re-creation is again Villa dei Papiri. Then comes a stellar pre- and postflooding view of Baia's Nymphaeum, the now-displaced statues arrayed as they were in the days of Emperor Claudius, who commissioned them.

Visitors here are invited to take a front-row seat for "Day and Night in the Forum of Pompeii," with soldiers, litter-bearing slaves, and toga-clad figures moving spectrally to complete the spell; or to make a vicarious visit to the Lupanari brothels, their various pleasures illustrated in graphic virtual frescoes along the walls. A wooden model of Herculaneum's theater, its virtual re-creation, reminds us that it was here that a local farmer, while digging a well, first came across what proved to be not merely a single building, but a whole town. Equally fascinating are the virtual baths. There's also a 3D film of Vesuvius erupting, replete with a fatalistic narrative and cataclysmic special effects: the words of Pliny the Younger provide a timeless commentary while the floor vibrates under your feet.

No town would have been complete without its sports facilities, and Herculaneum was no exception. Just opposite the thermopolium, on Cardo V, is the entrance to the large Palaestra, where a variety of sports took place. Only a few of the peristyle columns here have been excavated, a reminder of how much of the ancient town remains buried under solidified volcanic mud.

This thermopolium (a place where hot food and drinks were served, hence the Greek name) was connected to the home of the owner and had the counter decorated with a Priapus (the god of fertility) to keep the evil eye at bay.

These forum baths contained separate sections for men and women. Here you can see most of the architectural aspects of thermae (baths): the apodyterium, or changing room, with partitioned shelves for depositing togas and a low podium to use as seating space while in line to use the facilities; a round frigidarium, or a cool pool; a tepidarium, a semi-heated room; and a calidarium, or heated room with pool. For more attractive mosaics, go around into the women's baths, which had no frigidarium. The heating system in the tepidarium was also different—no hot air piped through or under, only braziers. Note the small overhead cubbies in which bathers stored their belongings.

One of the Ville Vesuviane that were built during Bourbon rule, Villa Campolieto is on the so-called Miglio d'Oro (Golden Mile), now the scruffy traffic-ridden Corso Resina near Herculaneum. Although its rooms are empty, and it feels forlorn and neglected, it has some sumptuous paintings, a grand staircase, and vestiges of its formal gardens, making it worth a quick detour if time allows and you've purchased a Campania card. Check the website and Il Mattino newspaper for upcoming events, concerts, and tours of the more interesting villas: La Favorita and especially Villa Le Ginestre, where the tortured and dying 19th-century poet Leopardi contemplated his fate on a spectacular terrace looking up at the fuming Vesuvio.