Fodor's Expert Review Villa Campolieto and Ville Vesuviane

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.