Herculaneum

Herculaneum was a small, wealthy seaside town of perhaps 5,000 people on the Bay of Naples, and in AD 79 the eruption of Vesuvius buried it under some 20 metres of hot volcanic material. Unlike the ash and pumice that fell on Pompeii, the flows that engulfed Herculaneum carbonised and sealed organic material: roof beams, beds, doors, food and the papyrus scrolls of the Villa of the Papyri. It was the first of the Vesuvian cities to be found, in 1709, and it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site together with Pompeii.

The site is sunk below the modern town of Ercolano, so you look down on it before descending. It is compact, and many buildings keep their upper floors. Worth seeking out are the House of Neptune and Amphitrite, whose summer dining room has a wall mosaic of the two sea gods in glass tesserae that still glow blue and gold; the House of the Wooden Partition, with a carbonised wooden folding screen still in place; the College of the Augustales; and the Central Baths.

The strongest moment is at the old shoreline. In the vaulted boathouses facing what was then the beach, excavations since 1980 have found the remains of about 340 people who had fled there and waited for boats that never came; casts of the skeletons lie where they were found, and one of them, an officer with a dagger and belt, may have been part of a rescue mission. Since 2001 the Herculaneum Conservation Project has turned the site round after years of neglect. The Villa of the Papyri, north-west of the town, is still mostly underground.

Getting there

The entrance is in the centre of Ercolano, about 10 km south-east of Naples; from the town's Circumvesuviana railway station, Via IV Novembre leads downhill to the site, passing the MAV virtual archaeology museum. Naples International Airport (NAP) is about 10 km away.