Pompeii Ruins Via Google Street View
Pompeii was a fairly wealthy
Roman city; the sort of place you might have a summer villa, until the eruption of the volcano on Mount Vesuvius on the 24th of August in 79 C.E. poured lava and ash on the city, burying the city, and the fleeing inhabitants, until it was rediscovered in 1738, and sort of excavated (really, exploited) in the nineteenth century. Recently, the government has been forced to close large sections of the ruins to tourists, and there is insufficient funding to maintain the current excavations, never mind engaging in more.