Ruins of Pompeii

WARNING: Some images on this page are disturbing.

Sorrento:  I don't know what you did today, but I visited the ancient city of Pompeii, destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79. What an incredible site it is too. Ironically, Italy would never have this perfectly preserved moment in history if it were not for the volcano erupting and covering it all in an instant - creating a time-capsule of ancient Pompeian life.

Our day began down in the hotel breakfast buffet with Martin and Shirley, where we are always the last to arrive and the last to leave. We filled-up on coffee, cheeses and hard breads, fruits and yoghurts, and then gather our cameras to start our daily adventure. Today we only had to drive half-way back to Naples to find the buried city of Pompeii. It was a difficult task to even find the main road out of Sorrento! It was only because DT had jogged these streets the other morning that we found the right route. When we did find the correct road, it was narrow and rustic - nearly like driving along the Amalfi Coast. Anyway, with the help of my GPS, we finally arrived and found the last parking spot and went into the ruins of Pompeii. We were in Pompeii for over 4 hours, visiting all aspects of daily life in the city - from bakeries to brothels. It was an amazing day. Perfect weather, too, by the way.

As you enter the archeological site - The Forum


The Forum


The Temple of Apollo


The Basilica: equivalent to today's stock exchange - and a seat of
judgments and disputes of a commercial and civil nature

In the 50's (and I mean five-o) Pompeii was a successful city with 10,000 residents (4000 of them slaves). Pompeii had beautiful town squares, court houses, two theatres, an athletic field, gladiator dormitories, public baths, a water and sewer system, schools, temples, hotels and restaurants, schools and decadent merchant homes. Then, Mount Vesuvius started acting up. In 62 there was a devastating earthquake that destroyed much of the city. The reconstruction was still on-going when Mt. Vesuvius blew up on 24 August 79 and unexpectedly covered the city in six meters of ash. Few people escaped the ash deposit or the next-day gas, lava and mud flow. What was covered in ash is now being excavated to reveal daily life in Pompeii. It is sad and intriguing at the same time. Scientists kept finding empty tubes in the ash deposits and finally filled them with plaster of Paris to discover they were the forms of decomposed humans - usually writhing in agony - suffocating as they died. Many are on display on the site, but I found it too disturbing to photograph, sorry.

(Added later: DT didn't.)

Pompeii discoveries (DT)


Pompeii citizen (DT)


In a few of the homes, frescos can still be seen on the walls


Dining room frescos


The door to the oven in this assembly-line bakery was closed at the
time of the eruption. 81 perfectly shaped loaves were preserved inside.


Pompeii is huge


Typical brothel bedroom


An advertisement for the brothel


In the House of Vetti:
"Priapus measuring his phallus" (dt)

The brothels were very interesting! They seemed to be everywhere and the fee for a service was the equivalent of two cups of wine. Carved into the stone on the public streets are phallic symbols - the penis and testicles forming an arrow - pointing the way to the nearest brothel. Many of the shops still had signs painted on their plaster walls advertising their wares from bread to cloth. We even saw "Rooms to Rent" and "Beware of Dog" signs!

Martin and Shirley in the theatre - Shirley is listening to her rented headset


Typical street in Pompeii (dt)

All around Pompeii - seriously on every block - were fast-food stalls. Openings were built into the tops of ovens. The food was placed inside ceramic pots and the pots were slipped into the holes in the ovens, so the food would stay hot in their pots. Some were plain, but a few were quite fancy. People ate foods from these stalls all day. They were like the first McDonald's. Each sunken pot (see the four pot openings in the photo - left) held a different dish to sell. Flat bread with cheese was popular... maybe an ancient pizza? This street-food stall was quite fancy and one of the best-preserved on the Pompeii archeological site.

The city had a definite street plan - everything laid-out in perfect order. Even though they had an aqueduct system, each building had a system for collecting rain water. They enjoyed bread from several bakeries and wine from local vineyards. Dinner began at four and I don't think many residents went hungry. Pompeii also had many public baths. The baths had hot tubs, tepid baths and cold baths and every resident - rich or poor - had access to the baths. We enjoyed seeing the cubby-holes carved into the rock to serve as lockers!

The Stabian Baths


The arena - sport and gladiator battles took place here


One of the four entrances to the sports arena


Outside city walls


Vesuvius still threatens nearby

After our four-hour walk through 2000 year-old Pompeii we stopped for a salad at the restaurant IN THE PARKING LOT. It wasn't too bad and the owner bribed us inside saying he would pay for our parking if we would dine inside his establishment. We bit, and dang, if he didn't pay for our 12 Euro parking tab! Sweet deal... though he probably owned the parking lot too.

We decided a drive to Mt. Vesuvius would be just the thing after our exploration, so we headed towards Naples and the National Park. We kept finding signs to the park, but never seemed to get any closer. There was either a river or a train cutting through town and all the bridges over the crossing were closed (reconstruction). The outlaying area of Naples is some of the worst slums we have ever seen (and between the four of us, we have lived in several third-world countries). Simply deplorable conditions. We think there must be a garbage strike because there were heaps and heaps and heaps and heaps of trash everywhere and the stench was overwhelming. (At least in Manila, someone would have lit it on fire!) In Naples, the trash seemed to be invisible to everyone (except us). Or possibly they can't see it due to the graffiti? After driving for an hour, we finally arrived to the entrance of the National Park.

It was closed.

Oh please, dear GPS, take us back to Lovely Sorrento!

After a rest and a shower, Shirley and Martin joined us on our deck for a glass of wine. From our room at night, Naples looks lovely with lights twinkling across the bay! We headed out to the town square to enjoy a lovely meal of the usual salads and grilled meat entrees. I had a Caprese salad and a small steak with garlic. The garlic on my steak was so strong, it was nearly hot - delicious.

Garlic, with a steak

Our hotel was offering live music, so we came back and enjoyed a few tunes before calling it a night. The Amalfi Coast, Capri and Pompeii in three days - not bad!

Shirley & I at the hotel after dinner - photo by DT

Pedometer: 17,037 steps (7.25 miles). Gelato of the Day: Snickers.