Pompeii and Herculaneum

Pompeii and Herculaneum
After an almost an hour trying to sort out things with Alitalia and then early breakfast we were on our way out of the door prior to 8am to walk the 3km down to Sorrento for our day trip to Pompeii and Herculaneum. After a bit of searching we found the Achille Lauro Car Park and were duly greeted by Federica our guide. It was promptly on to the bus and then, following various pick ups, off to Pompeii. This took about an hour and was actually quite an interesting drive. First we wound our way out of Sorrento with some amazing views and a series of interesting switchback and narrow roads, then it was through 3 tunnels (the longest at over 5 km) emerging from the last it was once again like entering another world as we were back in the “slums” of Naples with dirty, rundown, graffitied buildings and a feeling of despair and menace.
We soon arrived at Pompeii and were issued our headsets so that we could hear the interesting stories that Federica told us about the various parts of the site which is massive (over 170 acres). Originally settled by the Osa people the town was taken over by the Romans and was home to over 12,000 people when it was destroyed in the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79AD. Because of the nature of the eruption the town was covered in over 15m of ash and pumice and hence largely preserved, the ash and gases released in the eruptions is what killed virtually all of the inhabitants. We visited only a small proportion of the site in the almost 2 hours we were there -the Gladiator school, the massive forum, 2 of the brothels (including the one with all the erotic frescos. We learned that there were 42 wells in the city (with lead pipes) and a thriving economy. It really was rather interesting.
Although would have liked to keep exploring the heat and the crowds (they have up to 6000 visitors per day) meant that I was also glad when we headed off to a local restaurant for lunch – this included antipasto, pasta (homemade) with primavera sauce, a glass of wine and lemon gelati to finish – mmmm yummo
After lunch it was back on the bus and off to Herculaneum. This is a small sight at only about 24 acres, but is quite different to Pompeii as the destruction here was due to a massive mud and lava slide that covered the city and extended the shoreline 15km into the bay of Naples (once Herculaneum had a beach frontage!). It was possible to see carbonised wood remnants at Herculaneum (including a bed, doors and windows) whereas in Pompeii nothing organic remained. Federica took us around the town and showed us the Sailors fornace (store rooms which doubled as brothels), some very fancy villas (Herculaneum was a “summer holiday town” for the rich people of the day), the men’s public baths and the temple of Augustus among many interesting things – there were some amazing mosaics and frescos. Once again it would have been good to be able to stay longer and just explore but it was clearly time to head back to Sorrento and we were ushered back onto the bus for the return trip.
We got back to Sorrento at about 5pm and decided to have a last minute wander through the shops and stalls of the little narrow lanes near the town centre – we picked up a few more gifts and then found a restaurant for a light tea; fish and salad – just perfect! The owner was an old bloke who told us that he had been in Australia for 8 years from the late 1950’s, then the US for 15 before returning to help his family run restaurants and hotels in Sorrento. After a satisfying meal it was back to the convent to attempt to t our bags and sort out our travel tomorrowRead more