2 Best Sights in The Amalfi Coast, Italy

Painstaking excavations begun in 2003 below the oratory of Santa Maria Assunta are now open to the public and showcase tantalizing traces of Positano's vast Roman settlement buried by the AD 79 eruption. Through volcanic debris some 30 feet below the piazzetta is a cool subterranean world with different captivating chambers and crypts. The new entrance by the campanile leads to the most recently discovered Roman villa excavations, which sit below the Cripta Superiore with its spine-tingling funereal seating, reserved for Positano's most upstanding 18th-century citizens (i.e., the wealthy wanting to book a pew in heaven), members of the Confraternita del Monte dei Morti. Among the Roman artifacts are vibrant frescoes, ornate stucco reliefs, intricate bronzes and ceramics, and the mother of all stone mortars. The excellent restoration shows the impact of eruptions in the strewn debris, contorted surfaces, and cracks; glass stairs and walkways, multimedia displays, and subtle lighting cleverly illuminate the finest details below your feet and all around. Another entrance nearby leads to the Cripta Inferiore, with two naves, marble columns, and later additions (a rough stone altar believed through various documents to be dedicated to the Nativity, plus some 17th-century funereal seating). Ask one of the enthusiastic archaeological guides stationed in the small box by the church entrance for a tour, and you'll be guided down the steps to the new Ingresso Museo Villa Romana entrance behind the bell tower.

One of Italy's most majestic sights lies on the edge of a flat coastal plain: the remarkably preserved Greek temples of Paestum. This is the site of the ancient city of Poseidonia, founded by Greek colonists probably in the 6th century BC. When the Romans took it over in 273 BC, they Latinized the name to Paestum and changed the layout of the settlement, adding an amphitheater and a forum. Much of the archaeological material found on the site is displayed in the Museo Nazionale within the park, and several rooms are devoted to the unique tomb paintings—rare examples of Greek and pre-Roman pictorial art—discovered in the area.

At the northern end of the site opposite the ticket barrier is the Tempio di Cerere (Temple of Ceres). Built in about 500 BC, it is thought to have been originally dedicated to the goddess Athena. Follow the road south past the Foro Romano (Roman Forum) to the Tempio di Nettuno (Temple of Poseidon), a showstopping Doric edifice with 36 fluted columns and an entablature (the area above the capitals) that rivals those of the finest temples in Greece. Beyond is the so-called Basilica, which dates from the early 6th century BC. The name is an 18th-century misnomer, though, since it was, in fact, a temple devoted to Hera, the wife of Zeus. Try to see the temples in the early morning or late afternoon when the stone takes on a golden hue.