Pompeii

I think I'm going to have to process Pompeii for a while before I can really say much about it.  One reason is that it was SO much bigger than I thought it would be.  At the Corinthian ruins and the Parthenon, it was possible to stand in one spot and see most of the site.  In Pompeii, I couldn't even stand on the longest street and see both ends. We walked around for 3.5 hours and barely saw 1/4 of it.

But I couldn't ever shake the reality that this had been a busy, metropolitan area with thousands of people.  And within 24 hours, they were gone.  The town is still much as it was when Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.  And Vesuvius could erupt again.  Our guide says that the people who live around Naples grow up knowing the evacuation plan.  But how long will it take to move 4,000,000 people?