Piazza Bartolo Longo

Go to a small town as far away from Naples as possible but where you are still able to visit Pompeii and Herculaneum. I shall not start on how I do not have a liking for Naples. I will, however, tell you about how I loved Pompeii.

Pompeii is situated 7km from the volcano Mount Vesuvius. In 62AD a devastating earthquake severely damaged Pompeii, with some of the devastation still present today. The town busied themselves for the next 17 years rebuilding their homes, shops, palaces and temples. Unbeknownst to them, on August 24 at 1pm Mount Vesuvius was to erupt and that would be the death of almost all villagers in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Destroying the village where they had all worked so hard to rebuild.

Our guide, Alex, guided us through what Mt Vesuvius, decided to leave behind for us to wander through and I was just shocked. I was able to see exactly how the Vesuvians lived, what their houses, palaces, shops, city centres, restaurant and fast food joins and piazzas looked like as well as the brothel and what food they ate almost 1950 years ago.

One thing amongst many that amazed me about Pompeii was the graffiti. Don’t worry, it’s not modern graffiti like we know but ancient scratchings, which is the Latin translation of graffiti. During the games held in the amphitheater, children would stay in the street and write and draw (graffiti) stories on the street walls and kerbs. Advertisements for shops, restaurants and political elections were graffitied on the walls of shops, houses, streets and kerb by many villagers and merchants. This gave us a great insight into the daily lives of the people of Pompeii from over 1950 years ago.

Frescoes and mosaics were still present in some of the houses and palaces as well as some bed and door frames.

What was most devastating to see was the plaster casts of children, adults and even dogs who suffered through the 600C pyroclastic heat from the eruption. They were stunned in their last movement, last breath. This was more prominent in Herculaneum but I could barely glimpse at it in Pompeii.

As I neared the end of my visit in Pompeii, 5 and a half hours later, I had a very guilty realisation about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. If it never erupted and preserved the village of Pompeii, we would be guessing about the life from 2000 years ago. What food they ate, what their homes looked like, how they occupied their time, what tools they used and many more. I am very grateful for that but yet was holding back tears as I discovered more and more about Pompeii.Read more