We ventured via train to the famed dead city of Pompeii. I still find it incredible that there are 3 million people housed around Mt Vesuvius (which is still an active volcano)....doesn't anyone ever learn from the past?? Anyway, so Pompeii was destroyed in a volcanic eruption from Vesuvius in 79AD when it was buried under about 7 meters of ash and crud. However it wasn't just Pompeii. Herculaneum (a neighboring town) was also destroyed in the eruption, but not by ash, but by lava. LAVA! Much more epic but much less famed.
We were kind of expecting to walk through the streets of Pompeii and find the preserved bodies all over the place doing what they were doing when they were covered in ash.. However we didn't realise that almost everything in the city has been removed and placed in the Archaeological Museum in Naples. So..we got to see a couple of bodies in Pompeii...but missed out on a lot as we didn't factor the Museum into our time in the city and didn't get to see it. But that was our fault for being spontaneous / disorganised. But the city was great, the many brothels were cool (can't believe how small the beds were!) and we enjoyed the whole thing.
We very much wanted to walk up Mt Vesuvius, however the last bus up the mountain was at 2pm...and we didn't get out of Pompeii until 3.30pm. So again, our fault for being spontaneous / disorganised.