I always recommend visiting the ruins of the city of Pompeii, buried under the ash of the nearby volcano Vesuvius in 79 AD. Herculaneum is also recommended, but if you must choose for first time visitors I point you to Pompeii. Herculaneum, a smaller city buried under the molten lava, offers other fascinating looks into the devastating eruption which took thousands of lives and buried entire mini civilizations for thousands of years.

One can wander around countless ancient city cobble stone streets and move in and out of former abodes with mosaics and frescoes still intact, and taverns exposed to the elements left with impressions of ancient trade, and can ramble along statues of temples and ruins and columns against the backdrop of Vesuvio.

You can recapture the past in silent moments caught between tourists and birds and local cats and dogs. The stories frozen in time in the bodies of Pompeiians behind glass cases make one stop and reflect on one’s own mortality.

Make a day of it in Naples to visit the Archeological museum to see the treasures taken from Pompeii and laid out beautifully for museum visitors. Eat local seafood and roasted vegetables or the famous pizza and baba and have the best coffee you’ve ever tasted, and stand by the bay of Napoli and gaze as the glorious, ominous blue of a still living volcano across the sea, too close for comfort, and yet magnetically serene and beautiful.