Pompeii

Just outside of Naples, 30 minutes by commuter train, sits Pompeii, at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. Constantly visible from wherever we are in Naples, Vesuvius pokes its cone down the vista of every street, can be seen from everywhere along the port, and at night, Pompei's (true spelling) lights tinkle in the distance - going halfway up the mountain.

Marc has researched public transit to get us there. Naples has an extensive range of commuter options, this one being the electric train and our trip each way is less than €2. We leave by 10 am excited for the day, packed lunch and thermoses with hot drinks, we hop on the train no problem. It's filled with some tourists and mostly locals, as it's the slow run, stopping at every possible station along the way. By our 3rd stop, the walkie talkies start going, the conductor gets on his cell phone, the male passengers start talking to one another. By the 5th station it is clear this train is not continuing on, but heading back to Naples. Why? A World War II bomb has been found alongside the tracks just up ahead. Service is stopped until it can be dealt with! 

Chaos in the train station as everyone tries to find alternate routes to different destinations. A group of about 10 English speakers find one another and end up following the "older man with the yellow bag", like the pied piper, who promises us that he will lead us to the other train option that will take us close to Pompeii. Two kms in, we're wondering what's up, and low and behold, he's led us down to the port, where as we arrive, another train pulls in, the conductor halts it while we all run to get on board, he doesn't ask for tickets, and we all setltle in. I love Italy!

And now to Pompeii.  I've copied some text here for context....why reinvent the wheel?  What happened at Pompeii:

From livescience.com : "Because seismic activity was so common in the area, citizens paid little attention in early August of 79 when several quakes shook the earth beneath Herculaneum and Pompeii. People were unprepared for the explosion that took place shortly after noon on the 24th of August. Pliny, watching from the town of Misenum, approximately 21 kms from Pompeii, described...ash blocked the sun by 1 p.m. and the people tried to clear heavy ash from rooftops as it fell at a rate of about 6 inches (15 centimeters) an hour.

Shortly after midnight, a wall of volcanic mud engulfed the town of Herculaneum, obliterating the town as its citizens fled toward Pompeii. About 6:30 a.m. on the following morning, a glowing cloud of volcanic gases and debris rolled down Vesuvius’ slopes and enveloped the city of Pompeii. Most victims died instantly as the superheated air burned their lungs and contracted their muscles, leaving the bodies in a semi-curled position to be quickly buried in ash and thus preserved in detail for hundreds of years."

From history.com: "Ever since the ancient Greeks settled in the area in the 8th century B.C., the region around Mount Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples attracted wealthy vacationers who wanted to soak up the sun and the scenery. By the turn of the first century A.D., the town of Pompeii, located about five miles from the mountain, was a flourishing resort for Rome’s most distinguished citizens. Elegant houses and elaborate villas lined the paved streets. Tourists, townspeople and slaves bustled in and out of small factories and artisans’ shops, taverns and cafes, and brothels and bathhouses. People gathered in the 20,000-seat arena and lounged in the open-air squares and marketplaces. On the eve of that fateful eruption in 79 A.D., scholars estimate that there were about 20,000 people living in Pompeii and the surrounding region."

A wooden scale model from the Museum of Archeology in Naples:

"Pompeii remained mostly untouched until 1748, when a group of explorers looking for ancient artifacts arrived and began to dig. They found that the ashes had acted as a marvelous preservative: Underneath all that dust, Pompeii was almost exactly as it had been 2,000 years before. Its buildings were intact. Skeletons were frozen right where they’d fallen. Everyday objects and household goods littered the streets. Later archaeologists even uncovered jars of preserved fruit and loaves of bread!

Many scholars say that the excavation of Pompeii played a major role in the neo-Classical revival of the 18th century...and drawings of Pompeii’s buildings helped shape the architectural trends of the era."

I will let the images speak for themselves, wealthy Romans in their holiday villas, taverns, trading posts, shops, a vineyard, crops, public and private baths, a brothel, commerce, import /export, a laundry, a grainary, artists. The mosaics, wall paintings, floors, ceilings, Temple to Apollo, Venus, the Faun, so much sitting on 44 acres.

The Basilica

10s of streets covering 44 acres. You can't possibly see it all. Marc and I split up with our own maps to get to the portions we each want to see.

The brothel!, complete with a painted services menu along the top of the hall walls.

Temple of Apollo, and the baths.

Check out the size of that lettering compared to the lady!

Bottom left, the tavern. Food would be cooked and stored in large clay oblong jugs, with the pointy bottom end, which would be held up in the hole you see. A fire below would keep the food warm. A fast food joint!

The road beds date to BC through carbon dating. At each cross road, two large stone provide a walk'over. I'm not sure if it was to stay out of sewage or for convenience.

The mosaics, now held in the Archeology Museum in Naples, would have been on the floors, paintings on the walls.

Alexander the Great! The only depiction of him in existence.

And now to the Garden of Fugitives. Plaster casts of the cavities left behind once the entombed bodies were removed. 13 men, women and children were all found in the same area, some in a sitting position, the gasses coming down the mountain so fast, burning their lungs, shrivelling them where they were, all before the ash and lava. The Garden of Fugitives is where their casts now lie, on an original vineyard with vines still growing and tended. It's a peaceful, silent corner of this complex and very, very somber.

An open warehouse of the relics found and still to be catalogued

I said a prayer.

They are all lying in a row, no text, no explanation, stark

But even still, there is life in Pompeii, the flowers grow, the trees bloom, oranges grow, lemons too, the vines continue their clamber, and there's still quite an active (if touristy) town still living on. We depart in the dark via the return train on our original line, the rails are cleared, to home. A great day.