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| Pompeii was amazing in its preservation, but also shocking in its depiction of the victims, as seen here |
| Erin's Pompeii Journals 5-20-02 Pompeii was our next destination. We got up pretty early (comparitively speaking), packed up, and hoofed it over to Amalfi to catch the 8am bus to Pompeii. This was a 2 hour bus ride through the mountains, but it was a nice drive, as it gave us some views of cities we'd never have ridden through otherwise. Each time a sign pointed to Napoli (and consequently Pompeii), our bus turned the other way. So we went the scenic route, which is kinda fun sometimes. Anyway, around 10am, we found ourselves at the bus depot in Pompeii, which is right near one of the entrances to the ruins. We went instead to Information and gathered a map and some lists of local hotels & prices. The one in our book was one of the best listed, so we set off to get there. It looked so close on the map...but anyway, we got there finally and checked in, then lay down for just a second and got up 2 hours later to head out. We found lunch first, then went to the only large church in town to check it out. I can't even remember what it was famous for at this point, but it was dedicated to Santa Maria, as are about half of the churches we've seen. It was gorgeous, I do remember that. After the church closed for the siesta and we were kicked out, we went straight to the ruins, which conveniently had an entrance almost right across from our hotel. We rented the audioguide headsets to give us some form of tour, since all the people-led tours had already gone out for the day, and set off. Our first stop was a large amphitheater, where gladiator games were held. Remember, at the time of burial, this was a Roman town, and part of the value of uncovering it in its pristine state is that it's such a great example of a typical Roman town. After the amphitheater, we walked by a large sporting area, and then on into housing tracts. The houses all incorporated some pretty good-sized gardens, most of which were functional as well as beautiful. I had heard that the 'Garden of the Fugitives' was home to several of the plaster casts made of actual human remains found in the excavation, and wanted to see that, but the directions in town were confusing, and we passed right by it. We saw several wonderful wall paintings in many different houses, and I'm still amazed at how the colors stayed visible after being buried in an earthquake and covered by volcanic ash for 2,000 years! We walked through most of the huge town, stopping in some temples at the town center and the fish market, which housed the plaster casts of 2 human corpses (one is above), before realizing that the 3 1/2 hours we'd had when entering were almost up. We set off to find the Garden of the Fugitives, but couldn't find the entrance and had to give it up in order to return our audioguides in time. I did get an overload of information here, but it was a fascinating and amazing place to visit. There are apparenty ruins at Herculaneum, nearby, which rival or even exceed those found at Pompeii, but we didn't go there. If you're ever in Italy, I strongly suggest including Pompeii and/or Herculaneum in your itinerary! After our travels through history, we were exhausted and decided on a night indoors. We found a local supermarket and bought water and a few other essentials for our long train ride the next day, then stopped off for some take-away pizzas on the way back to the hotel. We polished our pizzas off as we watched the sun set from our balcony, then read for a while and went to bed early. |