Pompeii

Honestly I am not really sure what to say about today. Usually I just sit down and quick write a few words, but I’m at a bit of a loss today.

I knew the tiniest bit about Pompeii and the eruption of the volcano on Mount Vesuvius. I knew it happened fast with virtually no time for people to escape. I did not realize the breadth of information that was captured there. In one case, an eyewitness account. How this is possible to know I still do not completely understand.

Ironically our day started off with a tsunami alert. I’m not gonna lie, it scared me a little. I turned on the tv with very low volume while we were getting ready. It was super cold out again, so back to all the layers I wore yesterday plus another. Of course the news is in Italian but I saw there was a terrible earthquake and the tsunami alert included Italy and most of the Mediterranean Sea. I know it’s weird when you travel because the Earth is just different from what you’re used to. When I was in Japan, I experienced 2 small earthquakes, which was pretty weird!

We got to the train station and this time cleverly bought tickets to Pompeii AND back again. It was 40 degrees and the train was nearly empty. The train doors were open and we sat freezing for 15 minutes. Eventually we started moving and a few more people got on along the way. It was a very slow train ride, the opposite of the bullet train–we dubbed it the turtle train.

18 euros each to enter the ruins. It is free one Sunday a month, which was yesterday, so it was fairly empty today.

I guess what I didn’t really understand is the size of the city and the scope of all that was buried. It was as big as the town I went to high school in, with a few thousand people living there, although they do not have an exact amount.

There was a 17 year old young man, Pliny the Younger, who was 18 kilometers away from Pompeii visiting his uncle, Pliny the Elder, on the day of the eruption in 79 AD. Pliny later told the story to an historian who recorded his account. Pliny said the day before was fairly normal. At 1 pm he explained that the mountain exploded and he described it as looking like a pine tree shooting out of the mountain. His uncle was summoned to a rescue mission from people trapped on shore, but he never returned.

The explosion buried four cities in 70 feet of rock and ash. There are technical explanations about the weather patterns that day and location of Pompeii which caused the city to remain in tact under the rubble.

Once we walked around the city for awhile, it was not hard to imagine people just living regular lives there. The streets were straight with home after home. Many buildings had fireplaces and large pots. There were village squares with huge amphitheaters. There were storefronts and bathhouses, temples and crypts.

The colors within the many paintings were still vivid and the pictures clear. Some images showed shopping or animals; another had artwork of graphic sex acts and included small rooms with stone beds built into the walls. The floors included elaborate mosaics that were perfectly preserved.

We entered the auditorium and took seats in Row 16, seats E and F and imagined the work completed all by hand with no equipment, piece by piece, stone by stone.

There were posters in another entertainment complex area, like a small coliseum, advertising a Pink Floyd concert held there in 1972. Something to research for sure!

There were people found there, frozen in the place where they fell. They were cast into plaster and you could see some of them in a special building called Villa dei Misteri, or Villa of the Mysteries. Included was a painting so vivid the paint could have been put there last week. It was enclosed in a building, but the building was open to the heat, cold, and humidity.

And everywhere, the culprit Mount Vesuvius looming over the the city.

We came home eager to learn more about this precious site and I have already watched some information on YouTube.

So next we head to Sicily, or Sicilia. I will admit to you I am quite apprehensive. Mike has spent hours trying to figure out how to get there and ensuring we arrive during the day. He is always one to research things and safety is paramount. Tomorrow we will be at the train station very early. We have to use 3 different train lines so it will be confusing and probably intense. We are bringing some food because our train ride to Messina Sicily is 6 hours long. So fingers crossed this time tomorrow I have only exciting things to say about our trip into Sicily!