Pompeii
Pompei, Italy
Pompeii is the Roman town that Vesuvius buried in AD 79 and excavators have been uncovering since 1748.
687 tickets & tours
Ancient cities · theatres · pyramids · tombs · stone circles
Every great ruin, and how to see it well
354 ancient sites in 56 countries. For each one: what to see, which ticket to book, and when to go.
Colosseum · Photo: FeaturedPics, CC BY-SA 4.0
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Sigiriya
Sigiriya, Sri Lanka
Sigiriya is a granite rock about 180 metres high in central Sri Lanka, crowned by the ruins of a palace that King…
525 tickets & tours
Colosseum
Rome, Italy
The Colosseum is the largest amphitheatre the Romans ever built, an oval of travertine about 189 metres long that held…
349 tickets & tours
Machu Picchu
Aguas Calientes, Peru
Machu Picchu is the 15th-century Inca estate on a ridge 2,430 metres above sea level, between the peaks of Machu Picchu…
308 tickets & tours
Ephesus
Selçuk, Turkey
Ephesus is the best-preserved Graeco-Roman city on the Aegean coast of Turkey, 3 km from the town of Selcuk.
263 tickets & tours
Hierapolis and Pamukkale
Pamukkale, Turkey
Hierapolis is a Roman spa city built on top of the white travertine terraces of Pamukkale in south-western Turkey,…
194 tickets & tours
Terracotta Army
Xi'an, China
The Terracotta Army is a buried force of more than 8,000 life-size clay soldiers, with horses and chariots, made to…
187 tickets & tours
Petra
Wadi Musa, Jordan
Petra is the rock-cut capital of the Nabataeans in southern Jordan, reached through a narrow gorge more than a…
184 tickets & tours
Stonehenge
Amesbury, United Kingdom
Stonehenge is a prehistoric stone circle on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, begun about 3000 BC, whose great sarsen…
175 tickets & tours
Ancient-site tours and day trips
Ancient-site tours in Rome 450Pompeii tours from Naples 195Ancient-site tours in Wadi Musa 184Ancient-site tours in Athens 119Ancient-site tours in Cusco 111Machu Picchu tours from Cusco 100Ancient-site tours in Nazca 82Ephesus tours from Kusadasi 78Stonehenge tours from London 74Petra tours from Amman 62Pompeii tours from Rome 56Herculaneum tours from Naples 52Ancient-site tours in Lima 48Carthage tours from Tunis 44Sigiriya tours from Colombo 40Ancient-site tours in Oaxaca 36Sigiriya tours from Kandy 36Pyramids of Giza tours from Cairo 30Ancient-site tours in AlUla 26Chinchero tours from Cusco 25Ancient-site tours in Demre 24Herculaneum tours from Pompeii 24Mycenae tours from Athens 24Petra tours from Aqaba 23
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Algeria 2
Chile 2
China 2
Guatemala 2
Indonesia 2
Malta 2
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Argentina 1
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Bahrain 1
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What this site is
A great ruin rewards the visitor who knows what to look for. The same region has a site with a queue at the gate, a theatre worth the early start and a hilltop city almost nobody visits, and the official websites describe each one in the same words. We write the part they leave out: which one shows what you came for, which ticket or tour is the sensible one, how long to allow, and which hour avoids the crowds and the heat.
Every page is written by hand from the site's own facts and the tickets actually on sale. Where a ticket or a tour can be booked online, the live calendar is on the page; where nothing is sold, we say so and point to the nearest site that does. Bookings go through GetYourGuide, and the links earn us a commission at no cost to you.