Plenty of Pompeii + Climbing Vesuvius

Our second day in Naples was filled with a trip to visit what was one of the most astonishing places I have ever been. Pompeii was no doubt a sight to behold in its heyday and continues to be even despite the very palpable history and sense of catastrophe that was with us as we explored the massive town. Walking into Pompeii it was clear that the town was so much more than rubble and overgrown grass we could see--it was a whole new world.

The first sight we saw was the main gate of Pompeii and the main square.

The main square was known as Pompeii Forum and it served pretty much the same purpose as the Roman Forum did in Rome. It was the main urban center of the city and was home to Pompeii's civic, commercial, and religious institutions.

Mt. Vesuvius of course was distractingly dominant throughout the city. Everywhere we would walk we would look for its peak jutting up into the sky:

While there is no shortage of roads and buildings to look at, there are a few ruins that are most popular. For example, the baths. It was heated by water that spilled out from a giant bowl onto a heated floor to make steam.

The upper right photo were the lockers where they would put their stuff while they were in the bath.

One of my favorite things I learned was that they liked to bathe...and they liked to eat! Having a kitchen in the home was not the norm so there were stores with counters throughout Pompeii where they would order food. Like ancient McDonalds! And a few were right outside the baths. So they would work out, have their bath, and then get some food. Sounds pretty solid to me!

Clay pots would be placed in the little circles in the counter to display the food and keep it warm.

I wonder what sorts of food there was! We also learned that storefronts were opened and closed by sliding doors--which you could see by the tracks in the stone.

Next we wandered the streets some more to try to envision this bustling powerhouse of a city as it was before 79 AD. The roads were marked with stones to indicate if it was one way or a main thoroughfare. Stones also signaled the end of a road if it let out into a pedestrian area like the main forum. We also learned that wagon wheels wreaked havoc on the stone roads after a while and would result in deep groves. This would have to be repaired because if they got too deep wagon wheels would break. So even back then they had to handle some "re-paving" of roads! We also saw one road which was in the process of being replaced at the time of the Mt. Vesuvius eruption. You could tell where the groves stopped because they had replaced the stone.

The roads also had "crosswalks" so that pedestrians could cross the streets. The sidewalks were raised higher than the roadway and the roads frequently had water and waste in it that people wouldn't want to step in...

We also visited a few "homes of the wealthy" in Pompeii. The rich had courtyards in the middle of the homes, running water (through lead pipes), and frequently had cisterns or pool-type things to catch rainwater for home use.

The people of Pompeii were also really resourceful because obviously they didn't have electricity back then. So what did they do for some nighttime light? They added white marble-y stones into the ground so that they would catch and reflect the moonlight. Not exactly streetlights BUT a pretty impressive solution for sure! You can see this in the bottom left photo of the group above.

We also stopped by a bakery:

Did you know excavators found carbonized bread in the ovens?? The city was going about its business in 79 AD when the eruption happened so naturally there were loaves of bread being baked.

And we visited a brothel. No lie. There was a literal menu of "services" offered. And the bedrooms were more intact than I would have expected. That bed doesn't seem all that comfortable though...and it even had a pillow!

We wandered through the city some more. We stopped at "The Granary" (which is at one corner of the Forum) to see some of the artifacts the excavators discovered. These included many pots and even a caste of unfortunate souls who did not escape the eruption. The photo in the left top is a dog!

After that, we headed to the smaller ampitheater. The larger one by one of the secondary main entrances was not open to the public.

We then decided that we wanted to get a close up view of Mt. Vesuvius, which had punctuated every view in Pompeii so beautifully.

I kid you not, when I saw we climbed Mt. Vesuvius I'm only partly kidding. We did take a bus up some of the mountain but then we hoofed it to the summit. I'm talking 28,000 steps according to my husband's FitBit. But the views were well worth it. Let's start with the views on our way up:

You can see how the photo in the left was higher up because we saw less of the mountain and more water. Finally we made it to the summit.

We even saw it SMOKING. Not kidding. Talk about unnerving.

And the sky was sooo clear I had to break out the travel umbrella for some protection from the sun. I felt a little silly at first but my very sunburned shoulders definitely appreciated it.

And somewhere in this view from the summit is Pompeii...but we couldn't locate it.

We then returned to Naples, had some pizza, and went to sleep.

How are you enjoying our Italian recap? There's so much still to come....join me on the next one??