The statues and ruins of a 2,000-year-old resort, famous for its opulence and luxury, are now a marine visitor attraction.

Fishes surrounded Enrico Gallochio gently brushed the sand to reveal an ornate mosaic floor. The Roman nobility would host non-stop parties at Baiae, a quaint resort near Naples in Pozzuoli Bay.

Four meters below the water’s surface, Gallochio passes more mosaic pavements and the remains of walls that once surrounded a spa.

The mosaics date back to the third century and are only a tiny part of the remains discovered since Baiae, now a vast underwater archaeological park emerged from the flooded tomb. Its water. The site has become an unlikely tourist destination, even as work uncovered more ruins.

“It’s unbelievable,” said archaeologist Gallochio, the park’s manager under the sea. “In this area alone, we have found 20 rooms. There is still a lot to discover, but it is a work that will take many years.”

Residents have always suspected that something special lies beneath these waters. Ancient Roman ruins were occasionally found during the 19th century, and in the 1920s, the discovery of prestigious marble sculptures was during a dredging campaign off Pozzuoli.

This aroused the curiosity of fascist leader Benito Mussolini who suggested draining the area to see what other treasures could be obtained.

Then, on a clear day in the 1940s, Raimondo Baucher, an Italian Air Force pilot, spotted what he described as a “strange ghost town” while flying low over what used to be the harbor of Portus Julius.

Aerial photographs were taken by Baucher, who was also a free-diving pioneer, identifying with particular clarity the shapes of walls, marble columns, roads, breakwaters, and complex sidewalks.

Gallochio said: “The water was about a meter and a half deep, and because the sky and sea were so clear, he could see something below. “His photographs reveal a world that until then was unknown – only the locals suspected that something was there, but they didn’t know what.”

Since then, archaeologists have found dozens of artifacts, most recently a giant marble column.