Pompeii and Rome

Pompeii may be one of the most amazing places I have ever been, not for its beauty or magnificence but for preservation of a city wiped out by a volcanic eruption in the first century AD. The ruins of Pompeii are connected to the modern city of Naples and the whole region still lies under the threat of Mount Vesuvius, the volcano that erupted and buried Pompeii. The area has a great climate, is incredibly fertile and although the volcano is still considered active the people that live around the mountain consider the rewards far out weigh the risk.

Pompeii, a city of about 20,000 people was situated in an area where many wealthy Romans owned holiday villas and was known as a vacation city. Buried under up to 20 meters of volcanic ash, the entire city was lost for 1700 years. When discovered great sections of the city had been totally preserved in that ash. Store fronts on streets retained enough structure and design to allow academics to know what they were.

Street side eating place, with the cooking pots in place!
 

Some buildings when dug out of the ash still contained the products that were made there, such as loaves of bread with the bakers mark on the bottom.

Bake shop ovens


The Roman society was governed by laws that encompassed everything in everyday life. Streets had to be a certain width, wagons had to be a certain dimension. All was very set out. These cities with no underground sewer systems used the street to move sewer from the homes. As such there were stepping stones situated at strategic locations to allow citizens to cross streets without wading through the water in the street.

Stepping stones with groove worn by wagon wheels

Mosaics on the street and in front of stores advised people of the products that were offered there. Some of these street mosaics are still visible today. Different sections of the city were known for different services and symbols on walls and carved into the paving stones on the streets gave first time visitors to the city directions as to where certain services were found.

Phallic symbols were especially prominent giving direction to the red light district.

Bordello, turn left next street!

Outdoor theaters, gladiator rings (complete with small six by eight cells for living quarters), intact fountains, ceramics and much more was found as the place was dug out. Drilled holes through the Roman paving stones indicate that the area was settled long before this disaster and had been buried under ash at least twice before.

One of 27 street fountains of Pompeii

These fountains were all fed from an aqueduct and provided drinking water for the residents.

Citizens, once thought to have choked on ash, are now believed to have perished from extreme heat. Temperatures as high as 250 degrees Celsius spread for miles from the epicenter and people died as they were. As with the buildings, the vast layer of ash preserved some of the citizens of Pompeii.

Body found in the ash

After Pompeii a drive along the Amalfi coast, a popular tourist and vacation area of the Italian Mediterranean. Some 30 mile long, the road is hung and I mean hung on the side of the cliffs and contains around 1200 curves.

Amalfi coast road!

It is really exciting and scary when taking pictures and you look down out the bus window to four hundred feet of space to the rocks and no guard rail. The drivers are amazing, often having to stop and back up to allow oncoming traffic to get through the tight corners.

Now a UNESCO world heritage site the Amalfi Coast has thirteen towns or villages. These towns are, as the road, mostly hung on the cliffs and both homes and lemon farms are terraced on the steep slopes.

Town on the slopes

As with the Cinque Terre the villages along the Amalfi Coast are pretty and welcoming to all.

Christmas in Amalfi

Rome, what can I say about Rome, it has to one of the greatest cities of the world. Amazing history, great food and way too much to take in one day. But we tried, taking a hop on hop off bus around the city twice. We stopped at the Fountain of Trevi, of movie fame, built in the 1700's.



Trevi Fountain

Rome's history and artifacts spans the height of the Roman Empire as seen in the Coliseum, built between 72 and 80 AD, this four story free standing structure could seat 50,000 spectators.

The Coliseum

There are the many structures built by various Popes during the dominate periods of the Catholic religion and the renaissance years. Some such as St Peters Basilica are very representative of the design and art of this period.

Renaissance Sculpture

Then there are the more modern structures of administrative and municipal buildings built in the 1800's.

Victor Emmanuel Monument, started in 1885, completed in 1910

There is a lot to see in Rome and in Italy. Very few places that I have travelled have left me with the feeling that I would choose to go back there before some place I have not been. I will have to put Italy up in that category with New Zealand, the Cook Islands, and Japan.