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I had an amazing night of sleep (something like 10 hours) so I was more than ready to attack visiting Pompeii. This is something that I have wanted to do for a few years now … actually since visiting Rome three years ago and getting my first taste of these types of archeological sites.
I took the subway to the train station and bought my ticket for the Circumvesuviana train (that name doesn’t really roll off my tongue if you must know …which is not practical when having to ask about it!). It was about a 40 minute ride but it essentially drops you off just a stone’s throw from the entrance of the archeological site. There were quite a number of people in line when I arrived but the line was moving swiftly. I also invested in an audio guide (which also meant you got a pretty detailed map) … I would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting the site. It also shows you the paths to follow from one site to another and more importantly when the paths are closed off. It is a vast area and can come to feel like a bit of a maze.
I am not going to bore you with a step by step of everything that I did during the day … I ended up walking for a good six hours. And I don’t think that I even made it to all of the marked sites.There were definitely some highlights though.
Of course, just being here is a highlight onto itself. This is a vast space and there are only about 70 sites that are actually marked and identified on the map. The rest of the space though is still filled with these archeological remnants. Not quite sure why they are not specifically identified on the map.
I am always one interested in things that relate to the everyday life so I personally enjoyed that aspect of the whole visit. There was the Macellum which was essentially a market where fish, meat and fruits and vegetables were sold. There was the Thermopolium Caupona which was a sort of restaurant. It was amazing to see where containers would have been held and that would have been used to keep food hot. There were the different homes as well. They all seem to have the same general layout which always seemed
to include a small pool used to collect rain water. The fact that some of the décor and frescoes still exist is also pretty remarkable. There was also an area where laundry would have been done. They used water and soda but apparently urine worked quite well and so it was collected from public urinals. Kind of happy that that little tidbit of everyday life has since been discontinued!! There are areas that are also still being used to cultivate vineyards. Would love to have a taste of that wine!!
I can also tell you that there were two things that definitely drew the most attention from everyone who was visiting. The first is the site called the Lupanare. A lupa was essentially a prostitute so the Lupanare was the brothel. You could still see the beds and there were erotic frescoes on the walls … which apparently were meant as general suggestions of what to do while you were at the brothel. There is also a small phallus which was for the prostitutes … ummmm … personal use.
The other draw in Pompeii are the bodies. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius essentially meant that people were engulfed
in lapilli and as such they have essentially been frozen in place. When discovered, they poured plaster around the decomposed bodies (there were hollow cavities that had since formed) which means that you can now essentially see the body position and even down to folds in their clothing. It is quite eerie to see and definitely puts a human element to this tragedy that took the lives of approximately 2,000 people. It is a little hard to describe but you will understand once you see the photos.
So needless to say that this was an amazing and fascinating day. I would come back here in a heartbeat. I am sure that you can visit this amazing site a number of times and get something different out of it every time.
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