Glimpses of Pompeii

Posts may be getting a bit more compact over the next few weeks with ports coming daily.  Touring every day is more tiring that you might think ,and then trying to share everything that I'd like to is pretty much impossible.  Wish I could just have everyone along with me.  First world problems, I know!

Anyhoo, here we are, actually standing in front of some of the ruins of Pompeii near the Marina entrance, which would have been the  entrance to the city nearest the sea.   Lying undiscovered until the 18th century you can now find homes, public buildings, temples, an amphitheater as well as preserved remains of people and their belongings, which can be somewhat eerie when you imagine what it might have been like on that fateful summer day in 79 AD when Vesuvius erupted.

There it towers, Mount Vesuvius, at a height of just over 4200 feet.  If you notice how uneven it is there at the top, imagine that there was a cone on top of there, all of that imaginary cone is what blew off, covering Pompeii with hot pyroclastic ash rather than lava.  There was enough to engulf the city in 19-23 feet of the stuff, so much so that until the late 17th century no one really knew the city was buried there.

It would take two or three days to do an in depth tour here as the site covers about 163 acres.  The archaeological work is ongoing here, as is preservation.  They rotate different areas to close for a few years to give them a rest and and a little refurbish, then open them up and close another bit.  With millions of people walking through here each year it seems pretty much a necessity.

Lots of those people walk down this street made of basalt stones.  See the little bits of white stone in the cracks?  Those are called cat's eyes.  In the moonlight they would shine and give light the road so that deliveries could be made at night, or goods moved up from the port.

The Forum is a huge open space on the site.  Can you imagine how long it took to dig down to open up all this space?

The city had been inhabited long before the Romans came around 80 BC, the first inhabitants of this area were a group called the Oscans, who settled the town sometime between the 8th and 9th centuries BC.

The Forum however, was strictly Roman, you find them throughout their ancient realm.  We'll be seeing another one in Rome.  It was always a central meeting place.

The inhabitants of Pompeii had no idea they were living next to a volcano, it was just a mountain to them.  The beginnings of its rumblings began with a major earthquake in 62 AD, but they still had no clue of what was to come.

All of these are views from the Forum.  In the photo on the right you can see what remains of a temple dedicated to Apollo.

A photo of our small tour group today in front of Apollo's Temple.

This photo gives you a better idea of the Forum's size.

Mark and Jane's adult kids (Jake would want me to make sure I made the adult part clear), Emma and Jake, have been cruising with us the past 10 days and came along with Karl and I to tour Pompeii today while their parents went to Capri.  They were a joy to tour with.

Near the market square was one of the most heart wrenching parts of the tour, over in a covered corner.

Here there were some lovely frescoes,

along with plaster casts of some of the city's inhabitants as they died.  The super heated ash came on them so fast that they were frozen in place.  As it hardened over the years, anywhere that there was something organic, like a body, a space was left empty in whatever pose that body was in.  When the spaces were discovered, someone had the idea to fill them with plaster and these forms are just a few of the results.

I found this one particularly moving.  Was this person wondering what was happening, trying to cover their nose and mouth so he or she could breathe, praying, crying, so many emotions seem to exude from this shape.

They were all pretty haunting.

More places around the market square, including what appears to be a burial ground for three more people.

Heading down another of the sloping streets we learned that they also doubled as the sewer in the city.  The large stones that stuck up above the rest were to step on so that inhabitants could get across the street without stepping in the you know what.  Can't imagine what that place would have smelled like.

The Romans were great at bringing water into their cities with aqueducts.  There are several of these fountains on the street here that would bring in fresh water.  Women or slaves would fill their amphora (you'll see some of those later), with water at the mouth of of this Fountain of Abundance.  If the basin overflowed with water it would run out on the street to help clean it.  This fountain was the only one that remains that is made of marble and is quite lovely.

This street would have been lined with two story buildings.  The lower part of each would have been some sort of shop.

The photo on the left shows about what the size of the shop would have been.  The owner would then slide the doors shut along the sill on the right at day's close, then climbed to the second story to his home.

We made a detour into the local brothel where there were some colorful and graphic frescos on the walls, this one on the left not so much of the latter, and on the right is one of the small rooms used for the world's oldest profession.

Next highlight was the thermal baths and gymnasium, places for cleansing and exercising.

There were some pretty reliefs that had been restored here.

A sample of the lead pipes that brought water to the baths.

On the left is a picture of the ceiling of the bath entry for the men's baths.  Men and women had separate pools for bathing.  More faded but colorful frescoes were on the wall.

This area would have included the dressing room.

One of the pools and the domed ceiling above it.

The niches in the walls would have been for storing sandals and togas.  Another of the pools on the right.

And one more pool.  There would have been three types of these, hot, tepid and cool.

Along another street we peaked in to what would have been a baker's, you can see the oven for the bread at the back.  Lots of slave labor meant a need for lots of bread.

Many Romans didn't cook their own food but bought it from their own type of fast food restaurant.  The holes in this counter would have contained pots of different types of foods that were kept warm during the day.  Anyone could have come by to buy a bowl full.

The wealthiest home that we walked through was the Casa del Menandro.  These guys must have had some money because this place was a palace.  On the left here is what would have been their personal shrine for worshipping their gods.  You can see that frescoes adorned the walls.

Rooms weren't huge but there were many of them and and they had been beautiful colors.

They had their own private bath here.

The room on the left was probably the master bedroom.  It had no windows because that way they could keep out both intruders and the nasty smells from the street outside.  On the right is just a lovely fresco.

This is the large center courtyard of the Casa del Meandro.

More rooms and some small busts.

This was the prettiest fresco in the house.

A little about the amphora.  You may wonder why they had a pointed bottom, that doesn't make for sitting up very straight on dry land.  It did however work really well for transporting them in a ship with a layer of sand in the bottom.  The amphora could be settled into the sand and would stay in place much better that way than just sliding around on the wooden deck of a ship.

There were two theaters at Pompeii.  This is the smaller of the two and the one most visible.  All the stone seats are carved and would have probably had some kind of cushion on them when one came to listen to a concert or performance.  This space was called the Odeon.

Sadly this was the best view we could get of the Amphitheater.  It is set up for concerts in the summer time.  It is seats about 20,000 and is older than the Colosseum in Rome.  This was our final stop on our tour.  We could have continued to wander on our on but with the crowds there, as well as having walked around in the heat for over two hours we were ready to get back on the road.

In Naples we went for a Margherita pizza fix! This lovely city became its birthplace when that pizza was created in 1889 in honor of Queen Margherita of Savoy.  It’s the most famous pizza here and touts the colors of the Italian flag, red sauce, white cheese and green fresh basil. I ate that whole pizza myself and it was delicious, just enough scorch to the crust to make it tasty.  And then it was time for a gelato fix, I mean I missed having some the day before!  This time i opted for Pistachio and Cherry.  Both were good but I think the pistachio won out.  Karl and Emma had a Lemon flavor that they both said was delish.  Well fed we made our way back to Serenade to sort photos, shower, and get ready for the next day in Rome.