It’s called The House of Chaste Lovers and might not be the hottest Valentine you have ever experienced. But the fresco of a tender kiss in Pompeii will be revealed on Valentine’s day and then closed for a four-year restoration.
If you are in the area, then, catch a glimpse of it while you can - it’s in via dell’Abbondanza, and decorates one of the walls of the triclinium, the owner’s dining room (ancient Romans used to dine lounging on couches as you might know, since the word triclinium).
In the same place there is the skeletons of mules trapped by the lava of the Vesuvius during the 79AD eruption which destroyed the town completely. The mules were used to turn the mill in the bakery next to the triclinium.
Pompeii is the second most visited attraction in Italy after the Colosseum in Rome, and in 2016 had 3.2million visitors. recently it has been hit by a series of collapsed due to bad maintenance.
The House of the Chaste Lovers is menaced as well by disrepair. The structure is collapsing and the poles which keep the walls are rusting. They will be replace and reinforced and visitors will be able to see it from a new walkway under a plexiglass roof.