Early in the morning we took a three-hour train ride to Naples, then a 20-minute bus journey to reach the city of Pompeii. The majority of us learned the history of Pompeii in our elementary school, how it was destroyed in 79 CE when the Volcano Vesuvius erupted, covering it in ashes and debris. That covering layer preserved the city for centuries before its ruins were discovered in the late 16th century.