Day 4 Pompeii: August 2, 2007

Today I went to Pompeii and it was both wonderful and tacky, but mostly it was HOT HOT HOT! The temp was 35° C plus humidity (about 96° F) and I walked all over the dry hill of Pompeii with no shade & getting heatstroke, but it was so worth it!

I got a bus tour that picked me up at my hotel, and put me with a bunch of other English speakers and German speakers on a big bus.

At first it was frustrating, because it's 120 kilometers from Rome to Pompeii, so they drove half way there on the autostrada (toll autobahn) and stopped at a tourist spot you see in the picture to buy coral necklaces and local wines. I had NO interest in that. From the sales job given by the tour guide, I am so sure she gets a kickback from everything we buy! I bought an ice cream and went around back to eat it and gaze at the ancient monastery on top of the distant hill.

Since our bus was English and German, I got to hear everything twice and try to understand the German, since I already knew what it meant. It was good practice, but I realize that I really only get about half of what they say, even when I know what they are saying!

Before we got to Pompeii, they took us to lunch. It wasn't a very fancy place, but we did get to eat outside under the canopy of a 100-year-old wisteria vine. Actually, since there were 3 trunks, it was probably 3 vines, and it made pretty decent shade over a trellis that covered an area probably 50 by 100 feet.

I sat at a table with a German mom and daughter from Darmstadt. Between their English and my German, we had a pretty pleasant meal. Turns out the mom is a math teacher and the daughter is 23 and studying to work with handicapped kids! Kim, I told them about you, and she said she is required to have 3 years of school and one year of practicum.

The first thing they brought us was sourdough cibatta bread, which was good, except for no butter or even olive oil to dip it in. Then came some tubular type pasta with a little tiny bit of tomato sauce. Pasta is served as either a main course or a first course here. If it's a first course, it doesn't have much on it. Then they took that away, and brought us a pretty good green salad, except the dressing was like Olive Garden's, which is too tart for me! Soon they brought 2 thin slices of pork tenderloin, which was really good. A fresh peach was dessert. Since the lunch was included in the price of the tour, I thought it was pretty good.

Then back on the bus for the short drive to Pompeii. The bus pulled into this really dumpy tourist-trap area that looked like Mexico This is where we got out. By this time it was 1:30 and hotter than a firecracker. I was really disappointed that after all the hype, this disappointing cluster of stands selling jewelry and hats and ice cream was Pompeii!

We hiked up the crowded hill, avoiding other groups as much as possible, and for 3 hours the guide gave us a round-about tour of the ruins of Pompeii. Eventually I started to realize that in spite of the heat, in spite of the trashy tourist stands, in spite of the crowds, this was really amazing! For those of you that remember Ostia Antica, Pompeii is a bigger town and more complete. It has more Roman temples, and was a richer town. Many floor mosaics and frescoes (wall paintings) still exist. Some of the frescoes are even of people.

At the time of the eruption of Vesuvius ( a couple of miles away) Pompeii was a rich resort town of 25,000. Most of the people ran down to the sea and escaped in boats. Eventually the ash covered the town 30 feet deep, and solidified over the years. Afterward the inhabitants returned and built a new town up the hill. Most of the dead were found in cellars where they died from the poison gasses. Some were slaves left behind to guard the owner's belongings.




Something really unique happened to those people. The ash eventually turned hard, but the organic bodies deteriorated and vanished, leaving behind a hole of the exact shape of the person. Archeologists have filled some of these holes with plaster (or in some cases concrete) and you can see the exact position the person was in when he died. One of the casts was of a lady with long, thick hair, obviously pregnant, and covering her mouth. She really made it real for me.

In the last picture in this post, I am on the pedestrian crossing of a two-lane chariot street. You can even see the grooves cut by the chariot wheels!

So the whole touristy trip to Pompeii turned out to be really worth it, except that it was so hot all I could do was hunt for shade!

I went to dinner at a tiny spot near my hotel in Rome. First they brought me a bottle of dry mineral water (which I like) and some more sourdough bread with a great crust. I had real homemade noodle pasta with mushrooms and a lemon cake thing that looked like doughnut holes, but they were fried and covered with lemon pudding and it was really good. What an ending to a memorable day!