With the good ship Island Princess docking in Naples (3 November 2024), it was time to once again strap on the roman sandals and make haste to the train station for the 30 minute or so ride out to Pompeii. Ah Pompeii, the ancient Roman city famously preserved when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, covering the city in ash. Unknown if the cause was due to insufficient sacrifices of vestal virgins, or if Vesuvius simply had enough and blew her top. Jokes aside, at the time of the eruption, it was home to around 15,000 people, the majority, who sadly lost their lives (a few managed to escape or were off visiting Zio Guiseppe at the time).
The eruption (apparently 500 times more powerful than the Hiroshima atomic bomb), lasted 24 hours, however, molten rock and ash continued to rain over the city for two days.
Pompeii has a total area of 150 acres and holds the record as the world’s largest archaeological and excavation site. So it's big and busy. Especially as many museums and places in Italy are free on the 1st Sunday of the month, and would you look at that, it was the 1st Sunday of the month. Freebie!
It's a very interesting place and remarkably well preserved. Lots of rich romans had homes here and it's easy to imagine how fancy some of the villas' would have been based on what's left. Some of the more interesting facts that caught my attention:
1. Pompeiians did love a bit of graffiti. One piece, found in the basilica, reads, "I admire you, wall, for not having collapsed at having to carry the tedious scribbles of so many writers." Banksy was here maybe?
2. Pompeiians also had a knack for advertising. There are frescoes of taverns with slogans like "Here you drink well" and "To all our guests, best wine!" Would certainly have enticed me through the doors of one of these marvelous sounding establishments.
3. Gladiators were the pop stars of their day. Some graffiti reads, "Celadus the Thracian, makes the girls moan!" Go Celadus!
4. There's a famous mosaic in Pompeii with the words "Cave Canem," meaning "Beware of the Dog."
5. Pompeii had its own version of fast food places called "thermopolia." The counters with embedded pots for hot food still remain. Apparently roasted crickets were a delicacy. Yummy and all that protein.
6. Pompeiians had great teeth, a result of a good diet (those protein filled crickets) and high fluorine content around the volcano. I wander if that is still the case for the local population?
7. Is it Pompeii or Pompei? Pompeii is the ancient city and Pompei is the modern city name.
Is Mount Vesuvias still active? Sure is, having last erupted in 1944, although currently considered "quiet." Luckily monitoring and advance warning systems are in place, however, an eruption of the same magnitude as the one back in 79AD would do a lot of damage and impact close to a million people. Happy to report all looked quiet on the day we visited, not even a teeny tiny puff off smoke to be seen.
In the words of Julius Caesar "Veni, vidi, vici" - "I came, I saw, I conquered." Not sure about the conquered bit, the place needs more than a few hours to do it justice. Anyway, a visit to Pompeii is definitely deserving of being on a Bucket List and I'm lucky to have got to visit.
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