Photos: Italy - Part 2 - Pompeii

In the shadow of Vesuvius, Pompeii and Herculaneum were completely buried, and now they are exposing their secrets. It was AMAZING.

After our time in Rome we relocated to Naples, with the intention of spending a full day in Pompeii. There are tons of tours, tour groups, and even self-guided audio tours. We said “fuck that” and struck off on our own¹.

A bad pano of the “entry” that you walk up. Yeah, the exposure is messed up on the right.

Upon walking in, you see something that sort of looks like a dock area. That is not a mistake. The sea came up this far before the eruption. The eruption lifted all the ground a LOT.

Wild huh?

I am going to do my processed images first, so this might not make too much sense.

That is the bad boy, Vesuvius, as seen from the remnants of the Forum.

You can see from this image why Pompeii was fucked in the eruption. It is that close.

You might ask why they built the city so close to the volcano, and that would be a good question for us moderns. Alas, the soil from an eruption and surrounding a volcano is super fertile, and crops grow really well in that soil. Think Kona coffee. Yeah, this is wild, but it is what it is.

A main drag in Pompeii. This “channel” flowed with water, and the citizens would dispose of waste in it that would then sweep out to the bay of Naples. Remember, Pompei was a seaside city.

Yeah, life was wild in Pompeii. These channels had flowing water, and there were stepping stones for people to get across these channels every so often. Imagine swarms of citizens walking among the shops, going about their business. Fun!

So, in case you didn’t know it, the Romans were really into the beast with two backs. Yeah, they loved their eroticism, and one of the rooms in Pompeii was a brothel.

How do we know that? Well, check out the art:

A picture guide to what was on offer in the brothel

Yeah, they were totally into it, and they would definitely have had Pornhub had iPhones existed then.

One thing I noticed is that there are stray dogs roaming around Pompeii. Ok, really they were sleeping. But it was something that made me smile. They are living off the kindness of the tourists, and I would bet that some of the staff do feed and care for them.

No dogs were injured. They were all alive and well

One thing that still impresses me is the amount of art everywhere. Near the arena (odeon) there are some wealthy palaces, were the upper crust lived, and the art there was spectacular. Here is a fresco mural:

Imaging being an archeology student, working the summer between semesters, and you begin uncovering this.

Wow.

Near the entrance, there are some areas where the remains have been found. The bodies aren’t really bodies, but plaster casts of the void left by organic material in the densely packed volcanic ash.

Some of the casualties, and some of the detritus of life

There is so much more. I took almost 380 pictures that day, and it is far too difficult to choose my favorites. If you want to check out my Lightroom album click this link. Go nuts!

Last pic - this lady kept following me around. Almost like she was my wife or something:

Meet my better half, Barbara!

I will stop here. Next up we take a trip to Sorrento, followed by a couple of nights in Amalfi.

Ciao!

1. I can assure you that if you hang around one to get a little free tour, they are super attuned to that and will be rather rude about getting you away from their “super skills”

We didn’t try, but we say a couple of rather rude incidents, and we did laugh.

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