We were up and out early today for our trip to Pompeii. Mom made me egg and cheese sandwiches (I could totally make it myself, she just loves me too much to let me!), which I scarfed down quickly before we set off walking to the train station. We had to catch the train to Pompeii and meet our tour guide outside of the entrance gates.
Everything went smoothly, no uncomfortable encounters, and we got to have seats.. all pluses. At first I was irritated with myself for making us take the early 8:45 train, but then we had a few delays making our arrival time closer to the meeting time than we would have liked. If we had chosen the later train, we would have gotten there about 10-15 minutes late. Yay for OCD I guess. Lol.. while we had about 15 minutes to kill after we checked in with our guide, Chiara, we used the restroom and got slushees from the cafe across the street. It was already in the 80s with no cloud coverage. Today is going to be HOT.
Chiara took us through the ancient Pompeii ruins, explaining this and that about the area. The city was right on the ocean when it was created, and it was a harbor city. The city itself was spread out over 93 acres of land, all surrounded by mountains, which made for a natural border wall for protection.. they just didn’t know that the one mountain was actually a deadly volcano.. until they did..
She took us through the Roman bathhouses and brothel, which showed painted pictures of the sexual acts you could pay for, along with Roman numerals. She said this is because the general public was uneducated, couldn’t read or write mostly, and with it being a harbor town, many people from many different areas with different languages or dialects came through.. and men of all areas usually always want the same thing-sex-so they painted the scenes to make it easier to “order.”
Also, the prostitutes didn’t have the same stigma as they typically do now-considered poor and just trying to get by and whatnot.. these women were the most beautiful of the beautiful, chosen to be in this profession because of that, and they were paid and able to keep their earnings. They would go out into the town wearing their stunning jewelry and get the attention of new and returning clients. Chiara also pointed out that there were male prostitutes at that time, too. Also depicted in the paintings.
From the brothel and bath houses we walked up the huge hill to the main square with its huge pillars. It’s incredible that so much survived. When archeologists discovered Pompeii, they rebuilt the structures based off of the stones and bricks in the areas surrounding the few parts that didn’t collapse after the eruption. They started rebuilding in the 1700s, so even the rebuilt parts are ancient to me. It was quite fascinating.
We walked the original streets past shops and houses, a bakery and the first ever “fast food” joint.. the made clay pots that sat on counters with areas for heat to come through, so the food could all be cooked in the morning, put in the pots, and kept hot all day as patrons came and paid for their meal. Pretty dang neat.
We saw the home of the emperor, or who was thought to be the emperor based on the size and the different colored marbles found inside.. the mosaics on the floors are jaw dropping today, in their partially reconstructed state, I can’t imagine how it must have looked back then.
As we walked through, hiding in the shadows from the sun, Chiara told us of the story of Mount Vesuvius erupting, and how just as of 2 years ago, archeologists found proof that it erupted in October and not in august as previously thought.. anyway, the volcano doesn’t have an opening at the top where you can see lava moving and for the gases to escape. This makes Mount Vesuvius a very dangerous volcano because they can’t predict where the molten mud will spew when it erupts again. Plus, the mud moves faster than regular lava, and the initial eruption causes the debris to fly out and is deadly in its own right.
So all those years ago, it erupted and demolished the city of Pompeii (along with others in the area), and for days ash rained down. With the initial explosion, rock and debris flying though the air at top speeds was enough to kill people immediately. When the inhabitants saw this happening, most retreated into their homes to hide. Then, the weight of the ash over the next few days made the rooftops collapse.
Archeologists found ash casts of the people.. the ash hardened around the bodies over the centuries, and the actual human remains decomposed inside.. so they carefully made molds with the ash casts to see what the people looked like and to learn what their last moments were like. The people that were able to escape death came back days later to attempt to locate their homes and treasures left behind, but when they dug into the ash, it let the gases escape that suffocated them quickly. The others that saw this happen retreated back to safety and told the people in the new towns they settled in that the area was cursed by witches. This is why Pompeii wasn’t built on top of or scavenged for treasures after the gases escaped.. the people of the area thought it to be cursed-unlike the surrounding cities where people just rebuilt on top of the ash. Cities on top of unknown buried cities. Which, this is also why so much of Pompeii was able to be preserved and reconstructed, it had been vastly untouched from the eruption in 79AD until the 1700s when artifacts were found and the archeologists fought to save it.
At the end of this tour, Chiara sent us off with our next guide, Sofia, who drove mom and I plus a couple from Norway to a winery. Their names are Thomas and Helena.. they are in their early twenties and quiet, but we enjoyed their company all the same. We had lunch at the winery and got to sample 5 different wines with plenty of refills of each. Mom shared her fresh glasses with them as well as me, so I wouldn’t be “forced” to drink so much 😉 They loved it as much as I do!
After lunch, we went to the stables to ride horses! The winery and stables are on Mount Vesuvius, so the ground is more like loose ash compared to regular dirt. It was gorgeous! Sofia and her people put us on the horses (mine was named Mary, mom’s was named Beauty), and we followed Sofia in line around the winery grounds for an hour and a half.. up and down the rows of grape vines and down little paths between the fields and the villas on massive property. I had so much fun! Mary kept trying to eat the vine leaves. I learned how to steer her away, but at the same time, I was like, I get it girl.. I’d wanna snack if I had to lug me around too.. hahaha
After our tour was over, Sofia dropped us off at the train station. We rode back to Sorrento and walked to the apartment to get showered and ready for dinner. We were both so exhausted that mom called and ordered a pizza instead of attempting to walk around without reservations again. I was quite happy about not having to actually get dressed to go out. I ran an awkward mile through the apartment and a very slow pace, and then got in my jammies.
We attempted to watch TV, but none of the channels had anything other than the news on, so we ended up just eating our food and going to bed early. I’m quite happy about laying down, honestly. Tomorrow is another early morning, a boat ride to explore the island of Capri, plus our dinner reservations at Donna Sofia (so funny that this was our guide’s name today lol). So, off to sleep I go. Morning is going to come early.