Naples National Archaeological Museum

Almost everything portable that came out of Pompeii and Herculaneum ended up here rather than staying on site, which is why the excavations feel stripped and why this building cannot show all it holds. The Alexander Mosaic from the House of the Faun is set out on its own, made of more than a million small tesserae. The Farnese marbles fill the ground floor, among them the Hercules and the enormous Bull, cut from a single block. Upstairs are the bronzes from the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum with the carbonised scrolls, and the Secret Cabinet, the room of erotic material from the buried towns that was kept locked for most of two centuries.

What you actually see

• The Alexander Mosaic - lifted from the House of the Faun at Pompeii.
• The Farnese collection - the Hercules and the Bull, on the ground floor.
• The Villa of the Papyri bronzes - from Herculaneum, with the carbonised scrolls.
• The Secret Cabinet - the erotic material from the buried towns, now open to all.

When to go

Any time of year; it is indoors and a good use of a wet day in Naples. Mornings are quieter than afternoons and the museum closes on Tuesdays. Go before Pompeii rather than after, because the context for almost everything you will look at on the site is standing in these rooms.

Honest expectations

Rooms close without warning when staff are short, and the one you came for may be among them. Labelling is uneven and often only in Italian. Parts of the building are hot and tired and the lighting on some of the best material is poor. The streets immediately around it are scruffy and the entrance is easy to walk past.

Nearby

The historic centre is downhill to the south; Capodimonte is up the hill north.