Perhaps the most unusual gardens that we have seen in our travels are found at Pompeii, the community just outside of Naples, Italy, that was totally destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. The gardens of the Fugitives preserves casts of some of the dead citizens who were buried under lava and ash. It is an eerie reminder of the incredible power of such natural disasters as volcanic eruptions. Calling these burial casts “gardens” is a bit of a stretch and rather ironic.

Gardens of the Fugitives