Pompeii

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We got an early start this morning to be at the gates by 9:30am. Driving to Pompeii is easy and parking is everywhere. We parked at Camping Zues, where if you spend €30 at the restaurant, parking is free all day. Since the restaurant prices were pretty reasonable anyway, we thought is was a good deal.

It was a quick line up for tickets and an audioguide before entering the ruins. The audioguide was a must as otherwise you are just looking at a bunch of ruined buildings with no idea what they were. I was very disappointed however, as the large bulk (about 2/3) of the described buildings were closed and locked behind gates with no public access. Only the main tourist hotspots were open for viewing and many of them were clogged with tour groups. You need to get your elbows out to get through!

Pompeii was a very decorative city in its prime and growing with both a new bath house and large new amphitheatre being built at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius. There was also a lot of repair work being done after the 64AD earthquake which was mostly finished at the time of the eruption. When Vesuvius exploded, it dumped more than 3 metres of ash and debris on the city of Pompeii, collapsing many of the roofs and crushing the residents taking refuge inside. Following this, several large pyroclastic flows rolled over the town sealing the fate of any survivors and destroying any of the structures which were still standing. Today there are only a few of the wall towers which remain in their original condition. Some of the large villas have been restored and re-roofed to show what they would have looked like, but about ½ the site is actually still buried under vineyards and farmland.

There are some fascinating peeks into history such as the layers of render with different styles of decoration done over the years. The first style in many of the major public buildings was plasterwork made to look like large stone blocks and then painted to look like marble. There were also a huge amount of mosaic work on both walls and floors, even some raised sections made to look like carpets. The footpaths of the main road were mosaic tiled rather than stone paved.

We wandered through the ancient temples, courthouse and large open Forum area as well as some of the large villas. The bath houses were very structured areas with cool, warm and hot baths for both men and women separately, with additional rooms for dressing and private rooms for those who could afford them. The bath rooms all had false floors and the drainage systems were technically engineered to enable good hygiene and easy maintenance.

At about 2pm, a large thunderstorm dumped heavy rain for about an hour or more. The roads in the city are all about 300-500mm below the sidewalk level and used to be where all wastewater drained from the houses (essentially sewers) with stepping stones at each intersection for people to cross without getting muddy feet. These became rivers and the stepping stones were put to good use. We retreated to the restaurant with about half the other visitors so we had to wait about an hour for service but the pizza was very good and true to the promise, parking was free. The weather meant that the drive back to Sorrento was much less crowded as no one was at the beach!

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