Parco Acheologico di Ercolano, Ercolano

Pint sized version of Pompeii but more complete. Truly remarkable as it has intact wooden doors and ceilings, plus 3 storey buildings. An eerie experience to walk around without the energy needed to conquer the enormous Pompeii. Also contains the haunting skeletons of the women and children in the boathouses. Truly an amazing and humbling experience. Cheap too.

Disclaimer: I’m a huge Ancient Rome/Greece nerd. I used one of my free entrances of my artecard (highly recommended) on Herculaneum, so I was able to get into the site rather quickly. The wait was less than 5 minutes. I did not have a guide because I did a lot of research prior to visiting. If you also do not plan on joining a guided tour, I would highly recommend the guide booklet next to the ticket booth (free) Now the Herculaneum itself. The site is simply amazing for anyone who is interested in Ancient Rome. It is very well preserved, and you can enter nearly every building. Unlike Pompeii most buildings still have frescoes and over all Herculaneum is much much better preserved. A further bonus is that Herculaneum is a lot less crowded. The only negative is that only a fraction of Herculaneum has been excavated making the site rather small. That all being said I have a recommendation. If you want to visit both Pompeii (4/5 stars) and Herculaneum I would highly recommend not visiting them on the same day since a thorough tour of Pompeii take 5-6 hours and a tour of Herculaneum 2.5-3 hours. Also, I would recommend visiting Pompeii first since you will be more impressed with Herculaneum than because of how well everything is preserved.