Pompeii - In the Shadow of Mount Vesuvius

Pompeii was an interesting sight, as was Naples. We took a train from Rome into Naples, then caught a local train out to the site. Naples is notorious for being crime ridden, and we certainly got our fair share of shifty eyes and weird looks. We were only there for about 30 minutes at that! From the train we saw that EVERYthing was covered in grafitti. They need a couple of hundred painters to go to work in that city...

Pompeii was a good place to go see though. The city is much, much larger than we had anticipated. Its pretty huge, and took us most of the day to walk down and back one major street. There are lots of houses to explore, as well as theaters, cafes, bakeries, and even an amphitheater for gladiatorial games, kind of like the Colosseum, but only held 20,000 people, not 50,000. Many of the houses were in superb shape, with paint and frescoes still on the walls, along with marble floors and fountains, while others were pretty devastated. We also saw one or two of those plaster casts of people caught in the eruption and buried under ash. It makes you realize that there was a terrible tragedy here, even though it occurred almost 2000 years ago.

We couldn't seem to capture too many of the frescoes on camera, but we did get quite a bit of video of them. They will be posted on our youtube account soon.

Anyway, the city was a very cool sight. That night we went back to Naples to catch our overnight train to Venice. We ended up having the best pizza of the trip from this small pizza bar that shared space with a mcdonalds and a bar. It was soooo tasty. Naples is supposedly the place where the first pizza was created. We will never forget it. It was called "pizza bar" and they only served one or two pizzas at a time. You just walked up and got a slice. AT times they had someinteresting pizza concoctions, like french fries and hot dogs! We had pepperoni. It really had a zing to it too. So good!
Enjoy the pics from Pompeii. Venice is next!

Arrivederchi!

Eric and Laura


Eric at a ruined temple.


Laura in front of a carved doorway at the wool market.


Laura inside the ruined wool market building.

Laura in front of a mosiac floor.

Eric in front of one of Pompeii's long streets.

Eric inside a Roman theatre.


Laura, beside a cafe/bakery, with a marble countertop.

Laura in front of a fresco in a house.


Eric and Laura at Pompeii. (such honeymooners!)


An old political slogan from before the eruption.

Eric in an old roman cafe. They ysed to put the food in the pots in the counter. Apparently, no one ate lunch at home in Pompeii. We saw a lot of these around.

Laura in front of a beautiful fresco. There was more to it on either side, but this was the best shot we could get.

Eric and Laura in the ampetheatre where the gladiator games used to be held. This was a pretty cool place. Unlike the Collesium, we could walk around where the fights actually took place.



Eric in front of a plaster cast of one of the victims. Apparently, the volcanic ash hardend around the organic material, which later decomposed. All that was left was a hole. So then they poured plaster into the hole and then removed it, leavinig just the plaster cast. So this is a cast of a person who died in the eruption. Creepy?


Laura in front of one of Pompeii's many boulevards.


Eric and Laura outside the Pompeii Forum.


Laura in front of a raised platform. I think this was the hall of justice.


Eric in front of a bronze statue and ruined wall.


Laura in front of a bunch of ruined hillside buildings.


Eric in front of the ruined town wall.


Mt. Vesuvius, looking quite sinister, from the local train, heading back to Naples.

Chow!

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