Cerveteri

Where Tarquinia painted its tombs, Cerveteri built them: the Banditaccia necropolis is a genuine town plan of streets and squares lined with tumuli, great drums of tufa capped with earth, each covering chambers cut to imitate a house with beds, chairs, roof beams and doorways carved from the living rock. The Tomb of the Reliefs goes furthest, its walls and pillars carved and stuccoed with household objects, weapons, tools and a dog, so the room reads as an inventory of a life. UNESCO listed Cerveteri and Tarquinia together in 2004. Much of the excavated material sits in Rome's Villa Giulia museum.

What you actually see

• The tumuli streets - a necropolis laid out as a town with roads and squares.
• The Tomb of the Reliefs - stuccoed household objects covering the walls.
• The carved interiors - chambers cut to imitate houses with beds and beams.
• The scale - hundreds of tombs across a wooded plateau.

When to go

April to June and September to October; the site closes Mondays. The plateau is shaded in parts but hot in midsummer. Allow around two hours.

Honest expectations

Many tombs are locked or fenced, viewed from the doorway. Most finds are in Rome, not on site. Ground is uneven with steps into the chambers.

Nearby

Tarquinia lies north; Lake Bracciano is inland.