Beyond Pompeii: The Roman Sites Around Vesuvius

Around Vesuvius there are five places that belong with Pompeii: Herculaneum, the villas of Oplontis and Stabiae, the farm villa at Boscoreale, and the Naples Archaeological Museum (MANN), where much of what the towns produced ended up. Three more sights come up in every Campania plan and are worth knowing about, though they are not Roman sites on the volcano: the Greek temples of Paestum, the Phlegraean Fields west of Naples (Cuma, Baia, Pozzuoli) and the Bourbon Reggia di Caserta. This page puts all of them in one table, with how long each takes, how you get there and who it suits. We are an independent guide, not affiliated with any of the Parks or museums named here.

A good rule: Herculaneum, the villas and the museum are the natural companions of a Pompeii visit. Paestum, the Phlegraean Fields and Caserta each deserve a day of their own, in a different direction from Naples.

The times below are our planning estimates, not figures from the Parks, except where we say a Park gave them. For anything that costs money or has opening hours, we link the page that holds it: prices are collected, with the date we checked them, in Pompeii tickets explained.

The country villas are separate sites and mostly quiet. Oplontis in Torre Annunziata (Villa A only, with a 61 by 17 meter pool and Second Style paintings), Stabiae on the hill of Castellammare (Villa San Marco, Villa Arianna) and Boscoreale (Villa Regina, a farm villa with 18 wine jars in its cellar) each need their own plan.

Which ticket covers them is a structural point: the Park's three-day ticket includes the villas and the shuttle, while the Pompei+ ticket adds only the suburban villas on its list, including Boscoreale. Prices are on our tickets page, and Oplontis, Stabiae and Boscoreale covers what to see and how to get there.

Many of the best-known objects are in Naples, not at Pompeii, and the Naples Archaeological Museum is the place to see them. It holds the frescoes cut from Vesuvian walls, a 1:100 model of Pompeii presented in 1879, the furnishings of Pompeian houses, and a section on the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. Not everything is there, though. The Park lists the Hercules and the stag from the House of Sallust in Palermo, and the Boscoreale treasure divided between the Louvre and a private Rothschild collection. The papyrus scrolls are not at MANN either: they are held at the National Library of Naples.

MANN rearranges its rooms, and on 5 November 2026 its schedule listed the mosaic section and the Secret Cabinet as closed for refurbishment (to 30 November on the rooms page, until further notice on the museum's banner). The museum's own page of open rooms is the only reliable source, and it closes on Tuesdays. Our museum guide separates what is stable from what is dated.

If Greek architecture is what you want, yes. Paestum began as the Greek colony of Poseidonia around 600 BC. Its three Doric temples, traditionally called the Basilica, Ceres and Neptune, are dated to roughly 560 to 520, 500 and 460 BC, and the site entered the UNESCO list in 1998 as part of the Cilento landscape. It lies in the bay of Salerno, not on the Amalfi Coast, a mistake some tour pages make, and a train from Naples Centrale toward Reggio Calabria stops at Paestum a short walk from the site. We could not verify the status of the rooms with the painted tombs, so check before promising anyone the Tomb of the Diver. Our Paestum guide has booking, timing and the rest.

West of Naples, the Phlegraean Fields are a volcanic landscape with Greek and Roman remains. Cuma was founded in the second half of the 8th century BC by Greeks from Euboea, among the earliest Greek settlements on the Italian mainland; the "Sibyl's cave" is a famous gallery, though that it is the cave Virgil describes is not proven. Baia was a Roman resort whose bath complexes, mislabeled in the past as temples, are partly under water because the coast has sunk, and its underwater parks were established in 2002. Pozzuoli has a Flavian amphitheater and the building called the Serapeum, which was a market.

One site is missing from every sensible itinerary: the Solfatara, closed to the public since 2017. The ground in the whole area rises and falls over decades, which scholars call bradyseism, and INGV recorded a magnitude Md 4.7 earthquake there on 31 July 2026. Check the Park's page for notices before you go. Our Phlegraean Fields guide has the order for a one-day tour.

Not really, but visitors ask. The Reggia di Caserta is a Bourbon palace begun in 1752 to Luigi Vanvitelli's designs, inscribed by UNESCO in 1997. The station is opposite the palace according to the palace's own page, and the palace says high-speed trains arrive directly at Caserta. A palace visit plus the park fills a day, so it does not combine with Pompeii. The tour formats for it are in More of Campania.

Group by direction. Everything on the Circumvesuviana line is south-east of Naples: Herculaneum, Pompeii and Boscoreale, plus Oplontis and Stabiae a few stops apart. The Phlegraean Fields are west, reached by a different railway. Paestum is south by Trenitalia, and Caserta is north. A sensible Naples-based sequence, which follows the order most travelers recommend, is the museum or Pompeii first, then Herculaneum, then the villas, then the Phlegraean Fields, with Paestum if there is time and Caserta last. For the choice between the two main towns, see Pompeii or Herculaneum.

Weekly closing days matter more than hours. As of November 2026, the Naples museum, Cuma, the Flavian Amphitheater at Pozzuoli, Oplontis and Stabiae are closed on Tuesdays, and the Baia museum on Mondays. Pompeii, Boscoreale and Herculaneum have no Tuesday closure in the Parks' pages, so they are the safe anchors for a Tuesday. Recheck any of these before you commit a day, because they change with the season.