I was in Italy a couple of weeks ago and went to Pompei. I'd been there before, but this was a great trip because the weather was cool enough and the place was unpopulated enough so that I could spend a long time really looking at things.
It was pretty stunning to think of all those folks in what was a very modern, well-laid out and bustling city, waking up one morning - and gone the next. The entire city disappeared in 24 hours; most of its residents died on the beach, having run down there in hopes they'd be picked up by ships. But obviously, with clouds of poisonous gases (as Livy found out) and volcanic mud shooting out, nobody could get close enough to rescue them, and they died there on the beach.
Nothing to laugh about.
Naples has multiple options in which volcanoes will destroy it.
Pics
I was there in 1957 (as a 10yr old kid), and from what I understand there was more of it open then than now. The museum was phenomenal with the castings of the victims.