Italy with Kids - Pompeii and Vesuvius

06 Oct 2008


We got up early today - well relatively early I suppose, and into the Pompeii Ruins after 9am. Pompeii is surprisingly large. One has impressions from photos and descriptions that its a few buildings clustered together like a hilltop italian village, but Pompeii is extensive. We spent three hours traversing it, and then only looked into 4 buildings.

First we headed for the Villa De Misteri, or Villa of Mysteries. This attracted us because it houses the popular red frescoes that you see splashed around the souvenir stalls:










That isn't the only frescoe in the 2,000 square meter building, none of the others are as dramatic as the right of Diana, but fascinating and colourful all the same.












So we walked down stone streets showing ruts made from cartwheels from two thousand years ago,











Looked into many ruined houses including the House of the Faun, House of Sallust, and the garden of the fugitives. I wanted to see inside the House of Menander, but it and a couple of others were undergoing restoration.





















We exited at the southern end, and headed for the buses to Vesuvius. €26.10 for the four of us, and we were off to climb Mount Vesuvius!

Well although the day started fine, as we were driving up the mountain started clouding over, and by the time we were on the track up the mountain cloud had blanketed us in. I walked with Liam, who uncomplainingly and full of chatter walked his way up the steep path with me. We scouted around and found a representative sample of rocks to put in our pockets, and managed to catch a nice photo of the crater before it too clouded in.



At the top we couldn't see anything but cloud, and it was chilling down so we headed back. There is a small caffe' at the start of the walk which serves a passable coffee (in dreaded plastic cups), and this let us rest while waiting for the bus to leave.

Dinner tonight was at a snack bar right opposite the northern entrance to Pompeii Scavi. I mention the location bacause the pizzas were excellent! By far the best we'd eaten across Italy was found in a snackbar type restaurant. The crust for the normal Italian pizza is typically very thin and hard, with the cheese and tomato (in the worst cases) swimming on top. These pizzas however had lovely thick bases with a crunchy crust and great toppings.

Ky found some choice necklaces in the souvenir shops, and the boys had a giggle at the statues of erect penises with wings.

I went for a wander down to Pompeii modern looking for a new suitcase to replace the one that died on us yesterday. Although I did find a couple of suitcase shops, they were the upmarket type costing anywhere from €69 upwards (a bit more than we wanted to pay). I did find Pompeii modern very pleasant to walk around in, and reckon it would make a nice place to stay outside of Naples.

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