Pompeii: Great Mountain Views!

After touring Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese ports for the first 11 days of our cruise, we are now on the seven-day non-stop sprint across the Atlantic to Ft. Lauderdale.  I finally have some time to sort photos and reflect on the ports we visited.  It’s hard to believe that more than a week has passed since we visited Naples, Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast of Italy. 

I talked about the Amalfi Coast in a previous post.  Here is a photo essay on our later visit to Pompeii.

Imagine you live in Pompeii on August 24, 79 A.D. and you are strolling in the Forum, perhaps sipping on a beverage and gazing at the 10,000 foot Mt. Vesuvius just a few miles away.  Some of your friends and neighbors, fearful of the mountain’s recent rumblings, have decided to leave town, at least for a while, until the mountain settles down.  You are not worried, Vesuvius has not erupted for 1,500 years, and, besides, just yesterday you just participated in a celebration to the god of fire, Vulcanalia. 

You moved to Pompeii for the view and you were going to enjoy it – no matter what.  You take what turns out to be the final sip of your beverage and then it happens.  Several thousand feet of Vesuvius explode and up to 50 feet of ash land on Pompeii, killing you and some 30,000 others.  Residents of nearby Herculaneum watched this happening, horrified, now doubt, until they were soon engulfed by a river of ash and mud and muck that dried into a substance not unlike concrete.  Some 10,000 residents of Herculaneum were entombed by this mixture.

Our tour guide told us that the ruins of Pompeii were discovered in the 1700s.  Since then the ash has been cleared away and now about 2.5 million people visit the well-preserved remains of Pompeii each year.

Here are some photos from our visit to Pompeii:

We started our visit to Pompeii with a great meal at the Ristorante-Pizzeria Lucullus, probably the best meal we’ve ever had that was included as part of a cruise excursion.   We were served a three-course lunch that included champagne and a bottle of wine.  The cheese cannelloni were the best we ever tasted.

Here are some views of our visit.

Here is a view of outer wall of Pompeii

 Another view of the exterior of Pompeii

Pompeii has changed.  Unlike in Roman times, you can now get Wi-Fi.

If you arrive by car or caravan, you can lodge or camp at the Spartacus.

 We started our tour of Pompeii’s ruins at the Grand Theater.

A view of the theater grounds

Here’s the amphitheater.

We then visited a bath house, one of the few structures with the original roof

and ceiling still intact.

An exhibit in the bath house contains a concrete form of a body.  A guide told us that when bodies covered by ash disintegrated, they left something like molds, in the shapes of the original bodies. Excavators poured concrete into the molds and created statues of victims that look much like they did at the moment they were buried by ash and died. 

 In structures where the roofs remained intact, such as the bath house we visited, some of the murals and artwork remain intact.

Remains of the under-floor heating system could also be seen.

We walked streets once lined with homes and shops.

Another street scene in Pompeii 

  

Here’s a house.  You can see an indented shelf that could have been used for storage, display, or perhaps the Roman equivalent of a flat panel TV.

Our guide said this was a store because it had a slot in the threshold bricks that once held sliding wooden doors.

This was probably a restaurant or fast food shop.  Presumably food was displayed and served from the containers built in to the countertop.

Here I pose at the edge of an ancient well.

Artifacts found in the ruins are displayed and can be seen here.

More artifacts, including another body form

Here is a view of the forum area of Pompeii

 

A selfie with Vesuvius in the background.

 

Another view of the forum

Here is a view from the forum with Vesuvius seen in the background. 

The volcano still sputters and belches smoke.  One day it will erupt again.  We noted that many communities have been located near or on the slopes of Vesuvius.

Here is a picture of our traveling group as we near the conclusion of our visit to Pompeii: 

From left to right, Cousins Kate and Elliot, Kathie, friends Marc and JV, and me.