Thank you Godfrey! Posts like this including anything related to Herculaneum are always very welcome.
Godfrey I just remembered there is an entire section of the forum devoted to the architectural sites, so anyone who follows that topic and has info to share, please be sure to post it: Places of Interest to Epicurean History
I'm still figuring out how to start a thread so I've been using the general discussion section. I see there's a "create thread" button in the section you referenced; I've been having trouble finding those buttons but will look more carefully for them for future posts. 
No problem! In fact I can easily move this entire thread to that location after a time. My current thought is that leaving threads in "General DIscussion" will make them a little more visible, but if people pay attention to how the forum software works they quickly see that new comments bubble to the top of the "Recent Activities" thread regardless of what forum they re in.
I've had the pleasure of visiting Pompeii and Herculaneum, and of hiking Vesuvius. Pompeii is unforgettable, at least as an outline in my head; the image most striking to me will forever be the plaster casts made from cavities in the ash, where the organic remains have long since rotted and gassified. Thus do we find a human figure sitting with its legs drawn up and its hands to its face, choking on volcanic ash and mortality.
My two lingering regrets from that trip were these--first, that I did not at that age enjoy or appreciate wine. I had imbibed a stoic sense of pleasure as being base, and avoided alcohol until I was 23. (Sadly, one never does get a second chance to mis-spend one's youth. To think that I wasted all those perfectly good years on books!) And second, that I had no special interest in the school of Epicurus.
One day I should like to atone for that, both at the Getty Villa and again in the Bay of Naples.
How old were you when you were there, Joshua?
It would've been the summer after my sophomore year in college. My first major was History, and the department organized a trip. I later went to the United Kingdom with the English Literature department, which was my second major.
I do recall having some fear that the Parthenon Marbles would be repatriated to Greece from the British Museum before I'd made it to London but after I'd already been to Greece. I was deep into British poetry by then and Keats remains my favorite poet. All rather selfish of me, of course; but in any case I did get to see them. If I can ever get a little Latin or AG under my belt, I will certainly try to go back.
