Italy - Naples, Pompeii and Herculaneum

Is there anywhere more historic than these three? Naples is one of the oldest, continuously inhabited cities; the many fine Baroque churches of the ancient quarter* bely a much earlier Greek origin, rebuilt in the 6th century BC as Neapolis. After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Naples fell to the Goths, Byzantines, Saracens, Normans and Spanish, emerging in the 17th C as the second largest city in Europe. Pompeii* and Herculaneum* were smaller cities, but famously lying in the path of the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, leaving them buried and incredibly well preserved until their rediscovery at the end of the 16th Century. What gems! Excuses - these photos from our 2010 trip were taken with a basic bridge camera! (* = UNESCO World Heritage Site)