Day 16 - Sat, May 4 - Ruins of Pompeii

Today we woke up to light rain. After having such glorious sunshine for our day driving around the Amalfi Coast, none of us was going to complain. We loaded up the van and started our journey north. Our first stop was the ruins of Pompeii where we met up with our local guide, Sabrina.

Pompeii was an ancient Roman city near modern Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area, was buried under 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 ft) of volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. (We saw Mount Vesuvius on Tuesday - it was obscured today by clouds and fog.) Volcanic ash typically buried inhabitants who did not escape the lethal effects of the earthquake and eruption.

Largely preserved under the ash, the excavated city offers a unique snapshot of Roman life, frozen at the moment it was buried and providing an extraordinarily detailed insight into the everyday life of its inhabitants. Organic remains, including wooden objects and human bodies, were entombed in the ash and decayed away, making natural molds; and excavators used these to make plaster casts, unique and often gruesome figures from the last minutes of the catastrophe. The numerous graffiti carved on the walls and inside rooms provides a wealth of examples of the largely lost Vulgar Latin spoken colloquially, contrasting with the formal language of the classical writers.

Pompeii is a UNESCO World Heritage Site status and is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Italy, with approximately 2.5 million visitors every year. It is the second most-visited sight in Italy, after the Roman Colosseum.

Sabrina walked us through the huge site, pointing out how the people of Pompeii would have lived - small shop owners selling clothing or fast food or leather goods, wealthy import/export merchants living in large, beautifully decorated houses and being waited on by slaves, communal fountains providing clean water and a place to exchange tidbits of information, the forum where people would gather to hear messages from the city rulers, the local brothel with its frescoes showing “available experiences” - a sort of early sexual catalogue, the bakery which provided loaves and loaves of bread, the flour miller’s shop providing the flour for the bakery, the long roads laid out in a grid pattern, grooves cut into the volcano rocks on the roads caused by wagon wheels, the baths where people (men and women separate) gathered to bathe and gossip and be seen. It was fascinating - our interest was not dampened by the rain.

Pompeii was our last tourist stop. We continued on towards Rome. We are staying overnight in a town called Castel Gandolfo. This is where the papal summer residence, Palazzo Pontificio, is located. Pope Francis doesn’t use it - he stays in Rome even during the insufferably hot summers. Our hotel room overlooks Lake Gandolfo which is actually a volcanic crater. Yet another beautiful setting. We are only 30 km from the Rome airport and only about 30 km from the the Roman Colosseum. You would never know it - this area is green and lush and tranquil - a far cry from the hustle and bustle and noise and crowds of Rome.

Tonight’s dinner will be our last together. Simone won’t be with us. His mother lives nearby and he will be attending her retirement party. That’s a very good excuse to not join us for yet another laughter-filled dinner!Read more