A Day in Pompeii

Jason here again, this time blogging about our day in Pompeii.  For our final day in Rome we decided to jump a train to Naples, and then take a regional train out to see Pompeii.  About an hour and a half each way of really nice countryside.  Naples is a really industrial town that is somewhat unsafe according to the research we did so we didn't really know what to expect for the ride in.  We didn't encounter any problems except for one guy that seemed a little ticked off that I didn't want to buy any pink socks from him.  It was really tempting, but I decided to pass to his displeasure!  Anyways, on to Pompeii...


When we got to Pompeii we grabbed Pizza at a street vendor because there are nothing but snacks inside and we knew we would be a while.  After lunch we bought a book to tell us what we were looking at and guide us through the town, paid our entry (nice gimmick they have going, charge you to enter a city that doesn't belong to them!), and off we went.  


View from the entry...

I won't go into too many details on Pompeii but the basics are that the city was destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in the year 79 A.D.  The city was completely lost for over 1500 years in over 60 feet of ash from the volcano, until it was accidentally rediscovered in the late 1500s.  Many of the remains we saw today are dated back to several centuries B.C.  It was amazing how they have put the pieces together to really give you a feel for how the city was structured that far back in time.  Our modern day city structures resemble this city in many ways.  Here are the photos from today with some brief descriptions here and there...

The center forum, a statue from it, and the street exactly as it was found...

Cool shot of the city with a mountain in the background.  There were several large mountains around so we were never really sure which one was Mount Vesuvius.  Surprisingly to me, none of the maps indicated the direction of the actual cause of the destruction of this town...

There were a lot of areas dedicated to the Greek Gods.  This was an area of worship...

Here is a body that was found in the rubble.  Approximately 2,000 bodies were recovered...

There were several public bath houses in the city.  These were pretty interesting as those with wealth had the better facilities...

Some buildings had wall art still visible...

I thought the bakery was cool.  We still use this oven design in the pizza brick ovens today.  I was surprised at how much brick was actually used in the city.  Also a mill in the bakery...

The was the middle of a home of a wealthy person in the city...

This was the gambling house which was actually one of the largest buildings.  They know what it was because of some of the inscriptions found keeping tabs on the profits made from those with comped rooms upstairs.  Still done today in Las Vegas....

This was the brothel and I was pretty amazed by the details in this place.  There were 10 rooms with beds in them, and wall art describing the "services" that were available for purchase.  A plate of uneaten pasta and beans was also found here...

Maybe a kitchen?....

The oldest known amphitheater built in 80 B.C.  The same basic design is used today as well as the arches....

One last look behind us as we left to catch the train back...

It was a really fun day but hard to see everything and keep up with where you were.  It was actually a pretty large city which was surprising to me.  We talked with a couple from Portland, Oregon on the way back which was enjoyable.  Once back in Rome we had a steak dinner at a place called The Roadhouse.  If only I could have had a tall, frosty Bud Light it would have been almost the same as Texas Roadhouse.  They even had the metal tins of peanuts on the tables!  Now we are back at the hotel packing up for a train ride to Florence for three nights.  We are looking forward to moving on from Rome.  It is a neat city with tons of history to see and I'm really glad we saw it, but it is also swamped with tourists and the subway system is about as crowded as I would imagine New York City to be.  Updates from Florence coming tomorrow....


Adios Americans.