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Gli Ozi di Ercole 2026: Herculaneum's Ancient Beach After Dark, 10–12 September
Actors, classicists and live music take over Herculaneum's Ancient Beach for three nights built around the theme of love and war.
What is Gli Ozi di Ercole?
Gli Ozi di Ercole is now in its sixth edition: three evenings, 10 to 12 September 2026, that turn Herculaneum's Antica Spiaggia — the Ancient Beach where the town's fleeing residents were found sheltering under the boat arches when Vesuvius buried the site in AD 79 — into an open-air venue for scenic readings, scholarly talks and live music. This year's theme, Amore e guerra (Love and War), runs through all three nights.
The park opens for the event from 20:00 to midnight, with entrances at Corso Resina 187 and Via dei Papiri Ercolanesi 19 — different gates from the standard daytime entrance. Each evening is capped at 400 people, so it never feels like a mass event; the beach itself, with the boat-houses as a backdrop, is a genuinely different way to encounter a site most people only see under the midday sun.
What's on each night?
Thursday 10 September opens with Nella mischia. Tra amore e guerra, a talk-and-reading with actress Lucia Mascino and classicist Laura Pepe, followed by the concert Canti d'amore e di guerra with Ambrogio Sparagna and Raffaello Simeoni. Friday 11 September brings Furiose. Sulla follia d'amore, with Carmen Gallo, Isabella Ragonese and Silvia Romani exploring love as a form of madness through myth and poetry. Saturday 12 September closes the series in the same format — talks, scenic readings and a concert — carrying the Amore e guerra theme to its final night.
Tickets and how to reach Herculaneum
Tickets are sold through CoopCulture: full price €10, reduced €5 for ages 18–25, or €15 for a season pass covering all three evenings. Entry is free for under-18s, visitors with disabilities and one companion, and holders of an Ercolano park subscription. From Naples, take the Circumvesuviana from Napoli Garibaldi to Ercolano Scavi (about 20 minutes) — the same station used for daytime visits, though the evening event's entrances are on the opposite side of the site from the usual one, so it's worth checking the gate address on the ticket before setting out. First reported by NapoliToday and Napolike.
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