When in Rome...: In Pompei for a day!

Ciao tutti! As promised, and eagerly anticipated I'm sure :), here's some news from my trip to Pompei! I took the local train from Napoli and was at the ruins in about 30min. It was a Saturday and, of course, there was a horde of tourists. So many that it was irritating, tons of big groups detracting from the experience. Everyone wants to see Pompei, myself included. It is so cool to visit these places you've always heard about. I remember going to a big Pompei exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota with my mom one time & thinking... how cool would it be to actually go?? So, I did!

As you likely know, Pompei was a booming town on the coast that was destroyed by natural disaster. Earlier that year there had been a big earthquake that caused great damage & a lot of people had vacated the city. So, when Vesuvius blew it's top the city was not as full of people as it might have been, due to the earthquake. The eruption occured over a few days, involving a huge plume of ash & also waves of pyroclastic flow. What is that? It is a fast moving current of super heated gas! This is likely what killed everyone & incinerated everything. Sounds awful! There is a fairly accurate historical account of this written by Pliny the younger. (I managed to find out who Pliny the Elder was btw, he was like the first guy ever to record natural history in the field! Pretty cool! He died from the gas of Vesuvius)

Here is the main forum. Again, you can mentally reconstruct the cone of Vesuvius.

And then I saw THIS!! Just kidding, this is some computer generated thing I thought was pretty cool. Called, Pompei on the last day

some reconstructions after that earthquake were not complete. Here you can see primitive building techniques involving brick stacks.

with all the tourists you could almost envision the town full of people. almost...

quite photogenic!

here is me walking around with guidebooks in hand, one in English, one in Italian

there were some crazy plaster casts of victims, some parts intact like skulls, teeth & fingernails. During the excavations some human body shaped depressions were found & filled with plaster to recreate the victim.

here is an old bathhouse

Only 3/4 of Pompei ruins have been excavated. I met an archaeologist at my hostel who was telling me a lot about it. I guess there is no budget to do more digging at present. When I visited the site many streets/roads/buildings were closed off to the public. I guess in the past much more of the site has been accessible to the public and some things are closed because they are falling apart & there is no money to make it safe for tourists. Of course when you visit you don't really know what you are missing because the place is HUGE & there is a ton to see.

old frescoes still apparent

mosaic message like a doormat in front of a home. HAVE means hail or, welcome!

la casa del fauno. One of the largest homes in Pompei town. Here you see a bronze statue of a faun.

and here is the actual faun & other art taken from that house in the National Museum that I visited the next day

intricate mosaics also from casa del fauno

old timey bakery. those things at right were used for grinding grain and at left you've got the first pizza oven ever!

vines take over & cause a lot of destruction

huge ampitheater! here they would have plays and such.

most of the houses didn't have large kitchens for cooking. back in these days you would come to a joint like this to eat. those holes would be filled with big vats of food. today in Italy you have the same thing, the tavola calda (hot table).

here is where gladiators would fight!

the weather was taking a turn making Pompei seem ominous!

pomegranites

After spending about 4 hours at Pompei I was totally Pompeid out. It was awesome though & next time I'm down in that area I will visit the Herculaneum, another place nailed by that volcano & supposedly in better condition. Pompeians were quite into art & their homes were lavishly decorated. Very many artworks are restored & on display in the national museum. Most of the frescoes contained themes from ancient myth. Here we have Hercules & Andromeda.

and this is one of the most famous portraits from Pompei.

Also notable was a large collection of lewd & erotic art. In Pompei there was even a brothel called the Lupinarium (lupis- wolf), supposedly named for the wild sounds people would make there. Racy! It included some graphic frescoes as well as some comfy stone beds with plush stone pillows.

I'm having a nice weekend although, ho un po mal di gola. (I have a bit of a sore throat). Everyone keeps telling me THE INFLUENZA is going around, fingers are crossed to not get it. I wonder if they have flu shots in Italy?? Not that I'd get one, just wondering. People have a very different idea of health over here, western style medicine is the norm & doesn't seem to be much holistic wellness going on. At least that is my perception for now.