Greece has its own Pompeii: Thera buried Akrotiri in ash 17th-16th century BCE

A friend and I stayed on Santorini and our rental had this framed print of a guy holding some fish. We were surprised and delighted when we saw the original in the Thera museum, a life-sized fresco perfectly preserved. Akrotiri is an amazing thing to see.

The museum of prehistoric Thera is also worth a visit if you make it there! It is fairly small but contains some incredibly well-preserved artifacts. The frescoes are stunning.

I found Fira (nearby "large" town on Santorini, very close to the sites) miserably crowded, but seeing Thera was very cool. This is all about 1500 years older than Pompeii, so a very different experience IMO.

A bunch more photos if you click the wikimedia link in the article: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Xeste_3_of_archa...