Naples Part 1 - Ruins of Pompeii

After our 11 hour day seeing Rome at its Best, we booked two excursions for Naples! We were determined to see as much of Italy as we could.

(Statues of Diana and Apollo)

Less than 6 miles from Naples is Mount Vesuvius. It is best known for its eruption in AD 79 that led to the burying and destruction of the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. We would see Pompeii in the morning and Herculaneum in the afternoon.


Our guide for Pompeii was Mario. We were part of group 36. Our new friends, Bill and Lee, were also in our group. Mario had a funny little saying as we would make our way through the ruins. "Follow Mario. Don't get lost with all the foreigners."

(Following Mario on the streets of Pompeii)

Before we entered Pompeii we made a stop in a cameo factory. We saw a demonstration of how cameos are created and watched a master at work. This was not the last excursion that would include this type of stop. We started wondering if the tour companies received commissions on sales.

(Drinking fountain)

Pompeii was founded in approximately 600 B.C. It has both Greek and Roman buildings. After the eruption of Vesuvius, Pompeii remained buried until it was rediscovered as the result of intentional excavations in 1748 by the Spanish military engineer Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre. These towns have since been excavated to reveal many intact buildings and wall paintings.


Giuseppe Fiorelli took charge of the excavations in 1860. During early excavations of the site, occasional voids in the ash layer had been found that contained human remains. It was Fiorelli who realized these were spaces left by the decomposed bodies and so devised the technique of injecting plaster into them to perfectly recreate the forms of Vesuvius's victims. What resulted were highly accurate and eerie forms of the doomed Pompeiani who failed to escape, in their last moment of life, with the expression of terror often quite clearly visible.



Mario led us into a brothel. He pointed out pictures above each room that indicated sexual activity. We were sceptical that his description was accurate, but when I got home I learned that Pompeii was a Roman vacation town and brothels were quite common. Even many recovered household items had a sexual theme. Evidently due to its immorality, prior to or shortly after the destruction of Pompeii, one graffitist had scribbled "Sodom and Gomorrah" onto a wall near the city's central crossroads. This is a family friendly blog, so I'll just show you the outside of the brothel...


We saw a temple to Apollo, as well as one to Venus. There was a forum, amphitheater, and a Roman bathhouse. We also saw a rich merchant's home, as well as drinking fountains. The streets had grooves in them from chariot wheels.


It really was amazing to see this entire town that was preserved for nearly two thousand years.