A day with Vesuvius by Karen

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Geo: 40.7492, 14.5007

Today we went to the excavation of Herculaneum, another town that was destroyed when Vesuvius erupted in A.D.79. It's much smaller than Pompeii but more intact. It was buried under many, many feet of hot ash, so that it disappeared completely from the map. There was so much material ejected from the volcano that it actually moved the coastline away from the town. You can see the depth of the ash in the photo of the canyon. Where the people are walking at the bottom used to be where the sea was. The arches by the people were shelters where they would pull up their boats. The dirt wall across from the people is the depth of the ash that buried the town!

One of my favorite things in the city was the ancient version of McDonald's. They had fast food restaurants! The photo with all the round circles in the counter top is a restaurant. The holes are the tops of huge Terra cotta pots that were filled with food. Very cool!

The mosaics we saw were amazing. They had such incredible detail, and we're so well preserved. We saw other at work as well...ancient graffiti! Carved into the beautifully painted wall were a couple of camels. I'm thinking this was the ancient version of a kid with crayons!

We rode in a couple cars today with the tour company that transported us. That's an experience all by itself. The speed limit was 80kph, but the guy was driving 120! Stop signs have no meaning, and neither do the yellow lines that tell you what side of the street you are supposed to be on. Yikes! But we survived. Thank you, Lord!

When the eruption began, lots of people fled toward the sea. They took cover in those arches where they stored the boats, thinking they'd be safe inside. Unfortunately, those cubbies turned into ovens and baked all the people. They have found more than 300 skeletons inside. It was a very sad thing to see.

We also went to the top of Vesuvius and looked down into the crater. There are active fumaroles in there, perfuming the air with sulfur. The view from the top was spectacular. We could see Naples and probably Pompeii and Herculaneum. There are many, many people living right on top of the areas that were destroyed. If Vesuvius decides to yawn and wake up from her nap, it will be far more traffic than it was last time!
Karen

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Comments

[Barb]

Don't know if you're still checking these comments, now that you're home, but I'm catching up. What a fascinating stop at Vesuvius! And how tragic an event it was.