Villa Poppaea at Oplontis

Oplontis lies between Naples and Pompeii under the modern town of Torre Annunziata, and it was buried by the same eruption in seventy-nine. What has been excavated is a single enormous villa, traditionally linked to Poppaea, Nero's second wife, on the evidence of an amphora inscribed with the name of one of her freedmen. It was being renovated when the eruption came and was empty of people. The wall painting is the reason to come: second-style architectural illusion of the highest quality, with painted colonnades opening onto invented distances, in rooms you can stand in largely alone.

What you actually see

• The second-style painting - illusionistic architecture at its best.
• The garden peristyles - with the root cavities of the original planting.
• The swimming pool - a sixty-metre pool on the garden side.
• The emptiness - a fraction of Pompeii's visitors, for comparable painting.

When to go

March to June and September to October avoid both the heat and the worst crowds, though Oplontis is quiet in any month. It is a fifteen-minute walk from the Torre Annunziata station on the Circumvesuviana. Two hours covers it.

Honest expectations

It sits in an unattractive modern town and the approach from the station is unappealing. Parts of the villa are frequently closed for conservation. There is little interpretation on site. The Circumvesuviana is unreliable and uncomfortable, which is the main reason so few people come.

Nearby

Pompeii is ten minutes further on the same line; Herculaneum is back toward Naples.