Pompeii, as you probably know, was buried by the eruption of Vesuvius, soon after the birth of Christ. The ash and mud preserved the city, and provides a lot of insight into how the ancient Romans lived.
Pompeii is a relatively big city and needs at least 4 or 5 hours to walk around and take it all in. I didn't get the audioguide since I thought it would be an overwhelming amount of information. There is a great book that they give you with admission that includes overviews of all the different sites that you are looking at (of which there are dozens), which is adequate for a tour of the place.
After seeing much of Pompeii after a few hours, I was in the old brothel, one of the most popular attractions there. It was where Roman sailors would come after months of being overseas. There are some interesting frescoes on the walls, that I will likely not include for editing reasons in the picture section! I will show these frescoes in a different, for-pay site.
After seeing the brothel, it started to rain a bit. I thought I would just wait it out in the brothel until it passed over. Only it didn't pass over. As each minute passes, the rain got harder and harder. It turned into a full-fledged thunderstorm, and the streets started to flood. I thought,?I am going to get stuck in a brothel. How funny would that be?" Also, not having the foresight to bring a raincoat I was going to get soaked (to my defense, it has only rained 1 other day in my entire time in Europe!).
I put my digital camera in the very bottom of my backpack, and got myself psyched up. I was only about a quarter mile from the exit and the train, so I thought it wouldn't be too bad. Then I made a break for it.
I was the only one left in the city, as all the others had long since left, and I was running through the flooded streets of pompeii amid thunderclaps and driving rain. The water was up past my ankles and running in flowing streams down all the streets.
There was something incredibly exciting about running out of this ancient city, all alone. As I continued to run through the city, getting absolutely drenched, I smiled as I looked at the ruins. Being alone in the city was like a time-warp and I was back with the ancient Romans. It was one of the cooler experiences of my life. I can't say the same for the 2 hour storm-delayed train ride home in soaking-wet clothes, however.