The excavations of Herculaneum

Getting there

The Park has no car park of its own, and for a motorhome there is no official place with a written price: the simplest thing is to leave it at one of the Naples stopovers, at the Camaldoli or at the Zeus, and arrive by train.

• By train: the station is Ercolano Scavi on the Circumvesuviana, on the lines to Sorrento and to Poggiomarino, a six-minute walk from the entrance on corso Resina. From Naples you leave from Porta Nolana or from Garibaldi, under the central station; since April 2023 the fastest trains to Sorrento do not stop between Naples and Torre Annunziata, but according to the Region 115 trains out of 158 a day still stop at Ercolano
• From Camping Zeus, in Pompeii, there are few direct trains: with the timetable in force from 1 October 2026 they leave Pompei Scavi-Villa dei Misteri for Ercolano at 7:06, 7:42 and 8:18, and take twenty minutes; on the way back the first direct train after the winter closing time is the 17:56. With the others you change at Torre Annunziata
• By motorhome: leave the Naples-Salerno motorway at Ercolano Scavi. Next to the second gate of the excavations, in via dei Papiri Ercolanesi, is the paid municipal car park that the Park points to, open only during the day: those who have been there with a motorhome paid from 5 to 7 euros an hour between 2025 and 2026, and some were asked for the coach rate. A quarter of an hour away on foot, in via Gabriele D'Annunzio, there are some blue-line spaces at one euro an hour, free on Sundays, according to travellers
• The road: those who have driven there with a motorhome advise arriving from the centre of Ercolano and via IV Novembre, because from Torre del Greco the satnav may take you to a low, narrow underpass

Practical information

The ticket is bought at the ticket office or online on ercolano.coopculture.it, and for a normal entry there is no need to book. It is valid for a single entry: once you leave you cannot go back in.

Contacts

Where it is

Ercolano · Campania

You set off from

Notes

• Opening hours, read on 14 October 2026: from 15 October to 15 March the gates are open from 8:30 to 17:00, the last entry is at 15:30, and the archaeological area must be left by 16:40; from 16 March to 14 October you can stay until 19:30, with last entry at 18:00. The Park is open every day and says it closes only on 25 December; on 1 January 2026 it opened with a special opening decided by the Ministry, and for 1 January 2027 it has not said anything yet
• The ticket: 16 euros, 2 euros from 18 to 25 for citizens of the European Union, free under 18 and in the cases provided by law. Everyone gets in free on the first Sundays of the month, in winter 1 November and 6 December 2026, 3 January, 7 February and 7 March 2027; and also on 4 November 2026, a national holiday. There is no combined ticket with Pompeii: each park has its own. If you come back several times in a year you can get the ErcolanoCard, 30 euros per person, 58 for a family; the Campania Artecard is also valid
• What there is and what there is not: the left-luggage for rucksacks, umbrellas and large bags is free and compulsory. Inside there is no refreshment point, only the vending machines near the entrance bridge and the Terrazza Vesuvio, with drinks and snacks, looking out over the excavations. The Park's pages say nothing about toilets: ask at the ticket office. In the garden of the Casa del Rilievo di Telefo is the Giardino degli Ozi, the Garden of Leisure, in the shade of the pomegranate trees, where you can sit down. At the entrance lives a registered colony of cats, which must not be fed
• The ancient beach and the fornici: twelve vaulted rooms opening onto the sea, perhaps storerooms or boat shelters; in nine of them, since 1980, about three hundred skeletons of people trying to flee have been found, among them a young pregnant woman and the woman they call the Signora dei gioielli, the Lady of the Jewels, and beside them coins, keys, amulets, a surgeon's case. The beach has been open to the public since June 2024, and since 15 July 2026 you go down to it through the Galleria Martusciello, a lit tunnel more than a hundred metres long dug through the layers of the eruption, with two ramps to go down and come back up. Above the beach is the terrace of Marcus Nonius Balbus, with the statue and the altar of the city's patron
• The houses: the Casa di Nettuno e Anfitrite, the House of Neptune and Amphitrite, with the mosaic of the two gods and the nymphaeum of coloured tesserae; the Casa Sannitica, the Samnite House, with the loggia on the upper floor; the Casa del Tramezzo di Legno, the House of the Wooden Partition, with the wall of charred wood that closed off the atrium; the Casa del Rilievo di Telefo, the House of the Telephus Relief, one of the largest, with the portico of red columns; the Casa del Bicentenario, the Bicentenary House, partly reopened since 8 August 2026, only the atrium and the tablinum; the Casa dei Cervi, the House of the Deer, with the garden and the copies of the sculptures of deer attacked by dogs, closed from 25 March to 16 September 2026: whether it has reopened the Park does not say, and you have to ask
• What is new: in 2025 the Casa del Colonnato Tuscanico, the Casa del Sacello di Legno and the Casa dell'Erma di bronzo reopened; in June 2026 the Chalcidicum, the porticoed vestibule of the Augusteum, could be walked through again after twenty years; since 9 July 2026 you can visit the Casa del Mobilio Carbonizzato, the House of the Charred Furniture, and since September 2026 the bakery on the Vicolo Meridionale, with its two millstones and the oven. On 21 October 2026 the Park presents the reopening of the Casa dell'Atrio a Mosaico and the Casa a Graticcio, closed for decades
• The Antiquarium and the boat: in the Antiquarium are the statue of Marcus Nonius Balbus, the bronze Lernaean Hydra, the sculptures from the Casa dei Cervi, the gold of Herculaneum and, since April 2025, the room of charred wood, with a bed, a cradle, the cupboards and pieces of the roof of the Casa del Rilievo di Telefo. In the Padiglione della Barca is the hull more than nine metres long found on 3 August 1982, perhaps a launch from the fleet of Pliny the Elder, and beside it the skeleton of a man with his belt, sword and dagger
• What is closed: the Villa of the Papyri, the villa of the 1800 charred papyrus scrolls, is closed for works, with no reopening date; the ancient theatre, which used to be visited through the Bourbon tunnels, is closed until further notice. The Suburban Baths, the best preserved Roman baths according to the Park, are a restoration site: they can be seen only on the Saturday guided tour, until 12 December 2026, wearing a hard hat, in groups of fifteen, at 21 euros including entry. In November 2025 the places sold out in a few hours
• Sleeping nearby: in Ercolano, in via Cupa Monti, is the Agricamping Stone Vesuvio, which the motorhomers' lists give for vehicles up to eight metres: we did not find a website of the operator, so phone before going. The Park points, only for summer evenings, to the free car parks of two schools in via IV Novembre
• A stone's throw away, at via IV Novembre 44, is the MAV, the Museo Archeologico Virtuale, the Virtual Archaeological Museum, open from Tuesday to Sunday from 9:30 to 17:30
• Vesuvius and the Pompeii excavations have their own pages. Vesuvius can be reached from Ercolano Scavi with the private shuttles that leave from in front of the station

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