🌋 AD 79 | Pompeii Before the Eruption What you’re seeing: A reconstruction of a main street in Pompeii (Campania, Italy), with Mount Vesuvius visible in the distance during ordinary daily life shortly before the AD 79 eruption. Where is this? Pompeii sat on the Bay of Naples plain, roughly 5 miles (8 km) from Vesuvius. It was a dense Roman town of homes, courtyards, workshops, bakeries, bars, and street-front shops (tabernae), built around stone-paved streets designed for foot traffic, carts, a