Pompeii was not the only city buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius back in 79 A.D.. A few miles away, right on the coastline, there was another city: Herculaneum. That one town, just like Pompeii, was at the same time both destroyed and preserved by the disaster. Pyroclastic flows covered Herculaneum with a literal mountain of scalding ashes, burying the remains of the ancient city under 80 feet of volcanic materials.

Today, almost 2000 years later, the charm Herculaneum had is still intact. The town was a residential area for the upper class: smaller but richer than Pompeii was. Traces of the affluence of the ancient Herculaneum are still visibile in the original style and in the elegant decorations of the private houses.

Herculaneum differentiates itself from Pompeii also when it comes to the state of the preservation: the two cities were destroyed by the same eruption but the effects on them were not alike.