Villa Romana del Casale

A landslide in the twelfth century buried this fourth-century villa and kept its floors intact, and when it was excavated in the twentieth century it turned out to hold around three and a half thousand square metres of mosaic, the largest and finest collection in situ anywhere in the Roman world. The subjects run from hunting scenes across a sixty-metre corridor showing animals being captured across Africa and shipped to Rome, to a room of young women exercising in what look unmistakably like bikinis, to the labours of Hercules. The quality suggests North African workshops and an owner of the very highest rank.

What you actually see

• The Great Hunt corridor - sixty metres of animal capture and shipping.
• The bikini girls - young women exercising, in a small room off the peristyle.
• The Labours of Hercules - the triclinium floor.
• The scale - three and a half thousand square metres of floor.

When to go

April to June and September to October. The site is under a modern shelter, so rain is not an obstacle, but the shelter traps heat in summer. Mornings are quieter. Half a day covers it.

Honest expectations

The protective shelter over the villa is functional rather than sympathetic, and the walkways keep you at a distance that makes some floors hard to read. It is in the middle of Sicily with no easy public transport; a car is effectively required. Coach parties arrive mid-morning. Piazza Armerina nearby is pleasant but small.

Nearby

Piazza Armerina is five minutes; Morgantina's Greek site is half an hour.