Sperlonga On the trail

Tiberius's sea-cave villa and the museum built for its statues

Sperlonga

Tiberius dined inside a sea cave, with a pool in front of him and marble giants staging scenes from the Odyssey around the water. The statues were found smashed on the bottom and are next door, put back together.

Before you go. The ticket price is a temporary rate while work is under way, so it may change. Ask at the gate.

How the day goes

  1. The museum first: Scylla and the blinding of Polyphemus, reassembled from fragments.
  2. Then out to the villa itself, the terraces and the pool along the shore.
  3. Into the cave, where the dining couch stood on its own island in the water.
  4. The beach starts where the fence ends.

Open ground by the sea with little shade, and the cave is the point — the rest of the villa is foundations.

Where it is

Sperlonga at its real position from Rome, with everywhere else we list behind it — so you can see how far out this one is.

Sperlonga, and where it is from Rome Sperlonga drawn at its real position relative to Rome, about 131 minutes by car. The faint dots are the other places we list, so you can see how far out this one is. 131 min Rome Sperlonga

Open it where the roads are

Takes you to Via Flacca km 16,300, Sperlonga (LT), entrance on Via Valle Corsara, the address the operator publishes.

Getting there

Getting there, the comfortable way

  • 2 h 11drive from the middle of Rome
  • 144 kmeach way
  • 1 h 30once you are there
  • Rent a car for the day

    The day stays yours: you leave when you want, stop where you want, and come back when the light goes.

    • You pick it up in Rome and drop it back in Rome
    • No timetable to build the day around
    • The stops on the way are the good part, and they need a car

    Affiliate link — you pay their price, never more, and they pay us. You book with Localrent, and anything about that booking goes through them.

    See prices on Localrent
  • Have a driver take you, door to door

    No parking to find, no wrong turns, and you leave when the day is done.

    • Picked up where you are staying, dropped back there
    • No parking to find and no ZTL to worry about
    • Nobody spends the day driving

    Affiliate link — you pay their price, never more, and they pay us. You book with Welcome Pickups, and anything about that booking goes through them.

    See prices on Welcome Pickups

Also around Sperlonga

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Monte Soratte from Sant'Oreste

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€49 per person

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A morning in the trees

Clip into a harness and cross the trees: from age four there is a course to do.

€5 per person

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We have not verified this one yet. Everything below comes from the operator and we have not checked it — treat it as a lead, not as a listing.

Photograph by Roma1314, Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 3.0. Not this place: it shows what the day looks like, and will be replaced with the operator's own photograph or ours from the field.

Links marked affiliate pay us a commission — you pay the operator's own price and we never take your money. How we rank