Blogs from Pompei, Campania, Italy, Europe - page 4

Mount Vesuvius This famous volcano is best known for its eruption in Roman times. However, Mount Vesuvius has erupted more than 50 times since that fateful day in 79 AD. At present it is classed as a dormant volcano so if you expect to see streams of lava you will be disappointed. It is possible to drive close to the top of the volcano from where you can climb to the crater rim (EUR 6) but all you can see is a crater filled with rubble. However, if you make it up there on a clear day you will be rewarded with a stunning panorama of the Bay of Naples and the islands of Capri and Ischia. Streams of tourists clamber up the steep path to the crater, oohing at the postcard-perfect vistas in every direction, ... read more

The day dawned bright clear and hot as the Med often is and we headed off late to the ruins of Pompeii, they are huge and seem to stretch for miles. It is interesting to note that these ruins surpass the Roman Forum in Rome in terms of condition, whereas The Roman Forum were really ruins much of Pompeii is intact and you can almost feel the old Roman town bustling with life. There is a large Greek influence in the south and it comes to the for when viewing these ruins, this is a must do when in Italy. We spent nearly 4 hours roaming around until we found the 13 bodies that were excavated in 1960, plaster casts were made and the bodies lay now where they died in 79AD. The other interesting fact ... read more

Over breakfast at the hotel we discussed what each of us knew and was expecting from our day trip to Pompeii. We all knew that it was an ancient city that had been destroyed by the ash that decended on it following the erruption of Mount Vesuvious and that most of the population had suffocated before they could escape. We also knew that preservation work allowed us to see the town as it was before the devastation. During the excavation and restoration work, air pockets had been discovered in the ash within which bodies had disintegrated, so the archeologists had been able to pump plaster into the pockets to create a cast of the people who had died there. (We also knew the story about how Dr Who had caused it all in order to protect ... read more

Jueves, Agosto 5 de 2010. Porque Pompei es recomendado como uno de los sitios mas interesante en Italia ... y estando en Roma que es relativamente cerca, nos decidimos visitar las ruinas de Pompei. Pompei es una ciudad que fue arrasada, estilo Armero, hace 2.000 años despues de una erupcion del volcan Vesubio. Tenia 20.000 habitantes y se han encontrado restos de 2.000 personas. La ciudad quedo congelada en el tiempo y cubierta de lava ... muchos años despues, en la construccion de un canal se descubren las ruinas y empiezan excavaciones que aun no terminan ... La importancia de estas ruinas esa en que conservan la esencia de lo fue el imperio Romano .. hace 2.000 años. A Pompei fuimos en el tren rápido hata Napoles (1 hora y 10 minutos que es la mitad ... read more