Day 17 - Pompeii / Herculaneum

---

Today we left Sorrento and went to Pompeii and Herculaneum. Pompeii and Herculaneum were old cities that were buried when the nearby volcano Mt Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. We visited Pompeii first which was found in 1748. It was completely covered in ash up to 75 feet which is why it wasn't found for such a long time. It is a massive city and it would take all day just to explore, so we only saw a little bit of it. We saw the amphitheatre, the training grounds for the Gladiators and walked down the main streets of town. They had put stepping stones down the middle of the roads so people could use them to walk over as when it rained as you did not want to step on the roads as that's where all the sewage drained down (it actually poured with rain when we were there.... But lucky they don't use the toilets there any more). We saw lots of big houses and beautiful mosaics and frescos that were still around. We also walked through the old brothel and went through the old Roman baths they used to have (three different rooms for different temperature baths). We also saw some moulds of people who were buried in the ash which was really sad. We saw the mould of a baby, a mould of a man who had covered his face with his hands to try and cover himself from the ash, and a dog who was tangled up in his chain. After Pompeii we went to Herculaneum which was found in 1709. Herculaneum has more houses there so it was more of an urban type of place. It was covered in lava, so it was a lot harder to excavate, but it meant some of the mosaics and frescos were better preserved. The bones of skeletons and some of the wood in the doors were still found when they excavated Herculaneum as the lava had preserved it. Herculaneum is less well known but we liked it a bit better as it was easier to imagine what it was like back before it was covered up. After that we had a long drive to our hotel in Naples. I fell asleep, but apparently the drive was interesting because of all the chaotic driving around Naples. I woke up just before we got to our hotel and looks like we are in an incredibly dodgy area, our hotel has a gate (thankfully) at the main entrance and the hotel itself is a bit odd, with a random shower on the rooftop and an unused dim lit piano room. Tomorrow we head to Frankfurt (at 5am!) so will need to get some early sleep tonight! Ciao!

---