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Day 4 - Pompeii

Well, it’s been a while since I worked on these summaries - we’ve left Rome (which was chock full of excitement, as you’ll see in the reports ahead) and have just finished our first full day in Siena. I imagine I’ll be able to catch up with the reports before we leave, though, since it looks like we’ll be hotel-bound for the next two days. Lacie’s not feeling too well, unfortunately, so we won’t be doing the touring of Tuscany that we thought we would…. But enough of that - on to the Day 4 summary!

After one day of travel and two days of the beautiful island of Capri, we finally decided to start seeing some real history: Pompeii. We got on the train in Sorrento at around 1130, and arrived at the Pompei Scavi (Pompeii Excavations) stop some 40 minutes later. Once off the train, we ran the gauntlet of souvenier stands - so many souvenier stands - to buy our tickets and rent an audioguide for the site.

From the main entrance, we entered the excavations through the Porta Marina (the gate in the city walls that led to the sea). We walked past the temples of Venus and Apollo (finding some nifty statues - reproductions, of course - in the latter*). We also saw what was in essence the Pompeiian courthouse, a huge building with gigantic column-stumps scattered strategically around.

* If you go to Pompeii, you’ll quickly realize that 98% of all the cool statuary and art has been removed to the Archaeological Museum in Naples. It’s a little frustrating at times, but at least they give you copies of the originals to look at.

After that cluster of sites, we entered (through a side passage) the forum area. In ancient times, this was the center of the city; it was surrounded by the most important buildings (offices, temples, etc.) and the most important business of the residents was conducted there. Our attention was most rapidly drawn, however, by a storehouse to one side of the forum. Here, the keepers of Pompeii store their finds and projects; I got several good pictures of the person-casts* they had stored there.

* While digging through the ash in Pompeii and Herculaneum, archaeologists started discovering air pockets. Over time, they realized that these air pockets were all that remained of victims of Mt. Vesuvius’ eruption; a person who was covered by the ash would gradually decay away, and all that would remain would be the space they took up. Once that was established, researchers began to make casts of the victims of the eruption by pouring plaster into the pockets as they were discovered. Through this method, a number of dramatic statues have been created.

From the storehouse, we moved on to a quick lunch and one of the many bath complexes (which was very hard to find, by the way; the signage at Pompeii was far below optimal). After that, it was on to the first of many houses that we were to look at. This first was known as the House of the Depressed Poet, after a mosaic that was on one of the floors in the house when it was discovered (the original is in the museum in Naples).

After wandering through a few more houses and unguarded areas, we came upon the House of the Faun (so called because of a bronze faun statue in the front courtyard; the original is in the museum in Naples). The House of the Faun is huge, taking up an entire city block. It’s also gorgeous; you can see where the various dining rooms were (some with intact (though reproduced) mosaic floors), and you can walk through the amazing gardens that have been planted to resemble those that existed at the time of the house’s destruction. It’s just remarkable.

From the House of the Faun, we walked across the breadth of the city - peeking in at a laundry here or a series of frescoes there, all with the eventual goal of reaching the Garden of the Fugitives. This garden - currently in use as a vineyard, believe it or not - hosts a set of person-casts (both adults and children) that were discovered together, apparently trying to escape the eruption. It’s very poignant; they lie at the base of the wall separating them from the sea.

After the Garden of the Fugitives, we moved on to the Amphiteater (Lacie’s favorite site of the day). This is a huge building; my picture of Lacie in the middle of it makes her look tiny indeed. There’s a load of nifty history with this particular Amphitheater (the gladiatorial games there were suspended for a decade after one particularly violent riot, for instance), but I think this summary is getting a little long. And in fact, Lacie and I were both starting to get tired by this point. We saw a few more interesting ruins - including a temple of Isis paid for (apparently) by a six-year-old boy - but for the most part the rest of our day was spent aiming at the exit and heading home. Pompeii’s a fantastic trip, but we learned several important lessons there:

1) It’s not for everyone; you’ll either love it or hate it.
2) There is such a thing as too many ruins.
3) Excavations are exceptionally dusty.

Oh, and the digital camera really shone on this day. This was the first time we filled up the memory card we have, and we almost doubled our total number of pictures taken…

Day 4 pictures taken: 126
Total pictures taken: 282