It was a beautiful summer morning in A.D. 79. Ironically, it was August 24—the date of the Vulcanalia, a festival honoring Vulcan, the Roman god of fire. Just six miles from Mount Vesuvius, the people of Pompeii went about their daily business, selling fish and produce, tending the olive groves, baking bread or preparing wool for shipment. Little did they know that just hours later, their world would cease to exist, to be buried for nearly 17 centuries under more than 20 feet of ash and pumice.

The giant stirs.
The people of Pompeii had noticed the signs—they just didn't recognize them as such. Earthquakes had plagued the town for years and many made a living restoring buildings and monuments that had previously been damaged. Streams and wells near the mountain had suddenly dried up, something most attributed to the heat of summer. Stranger still, the sea had begun to boil in some places, and many animals had begun to abandon the city.

Without an understanding of vulcanology, Pompeii's residents didn't know what to make of these portents. The volcano had, after all, been sleeping for over 800 years. Fig and olive trees flourished on its fertile slopes, wheat and other crops down below. The city's founders never realized that the richness of the soil was due to the fact that the town lay on an ancient lava plateau. They'd even built massive city walls 20 feet thick and more than 30 feet high from the native basalt (hardened lava), not realizing just how little protection the walls would offer from their true enemy.

Sophisticated civilization.
While the people of Pompeii lacked information about Vesuvius, they were clearly an advanced society. A cosmopolitan Roman trading town of 20,000 residents including Greeks, Etruscans and Africans, Pompeii covered 160 acres. It was a flourishing center for traditional crafts, with 40 workshops devoted just to wool and clothing production. Daily life here offered many modern conveniences including indoor heating and plumbing, and the stone-paved streets were lined with luxurious homes, theaters, shops, taverns, public baths, temples, brothels and an enormous amphitheater that could hold the entire population of the city. "Fast food" and souvenirs were available at stands just outside the stadium, much as they are in modern days. Streets were ingeniously designed with bollards to keep carts out of pedestrian areas, with raised sidewalks and crosswalks to keep feet dry. Public cafeterias even had counters with holes in them to hold bowls of food, which were ingeniously heated from below.

The final hours.
All their achievements couldn't help them, though, on that fateful day in A.D. 79. Around noon that day, the earth shook, fire reached a mile into the sky and hot pumice and dust rained down over the panicked residents. Day suddenly turned to night as masters and slaves alike tried to flee to the roads or the harbor, or locked themselves behind doors that would remain closed for 1,700 years. Some who fled took house keys with them, obviously hoping to return.

By dusk, roofs began to collapse under the weight of ash and the first of several pyroclastic flows swept through the city at 70 mph carrying gases and ash that, at 700 degrees Fahrenheit, instantly incinerated everything in their path. More explosions followed that night and the next morning, leaving the whole of the city a cold gray tomb.

Most of the survivors abandoned the area and as the centuries passed, Vesuvius continued to erupt, further burying the memories. It wasn't until a landowner digging a well in 1711 came across some remnants of nearby Herculeneum that the search began for other cities buried by Vesuvius.

Unique snapshot of an ancient world.
What makes the ruins of Pompeii so unique is both their vastness (three-fifths of the 160-acre city has been excavated) and the fact that it requires no imagination to envision how these people lived. You can walk along the streets where the grooves of chariot wheels are still visible. Admire the elaborate mosaics and frescoes in upper-class villas. And read the graffiti still legible on public walls—from election campaign signs to the profane. One mosaic even depicts what must be one of the world's first "Beware of the Dog" signs.

And famously, you can view the plaster casts of bodies consumed in the final hours of Vesuvius's fury. Some 2,000 people (and a dog) were preserved in this way, the rain and ash forming a clay shell that survived long after their earthly remains vanished.

Never has a city been so perfectly preserved mid-stride the act of daily life. When archaeologists uncovered the ruins, they found fresh eggs and fish laid out on tables, pots full of meat bones hanging over long-dead fires and in one bakery, 81 loaves of somewhat overdone bread. Frescoes were left undone, the paints still in their pots.

As tragic as it was, the disaster at Pompeii was a windfall for archaeologists and for anyone who has ever dreamed of stepping back in time.

Walk in the footsteps of the ancient Romans.
Many Holland America Europe cruises take you to Naples, and shore excursions take you to Pompeii right from the pier. Learn about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79 and discover what life was like in early Roman times. This extraordinary open-air museum lets you walk the same streets, visit the same shops and gaze in awe at the same magnificent frescoes that the people of Pompeii once admired.

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