POMPEII (Sun 7 June)

We had a slow start today, mainly due to the long day yesterday. First job of the day fore was to give myself a haircut. My hair has been bothering me for several days now, especially in this heat. Considering the tools at hand, a haircut meant an all over shave. Justine still hasn’t decided if she likes it, but it is practical. This seems to be normal practice amongst the backpackers that we have seen. They seem to fit two schools of thought (a) neither cut their hair or shave for the entire length of their travels, or (b) shave everything that is visible. I’ve opted for the later, but not sure how long it will last.

Once we got going we headed for Pompeii by train. We got a three day pass for 27 Euros each, and this gives us unlimited train and bus, plus two visits to ‘archeological sites’. This seems to be the best value around.

Our first impression of Pompeii was the touts and stall holders near the train station. But they didn’t give us too much bother, apart from the usual banter. What we did receive with out tickets was a map!! We were very impressed with this as they seem to be very reluctant to hand them out over here. The other thing that impressed us was the size of the place. This really was a big city. This was a city of 20,000 which in 79 a.d. was buried under 10 metres of hot volcanic ash. They say to allow three hours for a visit, well we were there for five hours and we still didn’t see everything. They had everything there from fast food outlets, baths, temples and churches, to theatres, an amphitheatre, and even a brothel. Of everything that was there, it was the brothel that had the biggest crowd, with a queue outside the door. It is the brothel that you hear the most about when talking about Pompeii, but I have to say it is over-hyped and a bit of let down. It is kind of interesting at most. A very small house, with several rooms and a toilet. Inside each room is an extremely short bet that you would struggle to lie down in. The bed is a stone slab with a stone pillow carved into it. Outside of these rooms are fresco style painting of various … positions … so that the foreign cliental could select their desire. And then quickly out the back door.

More interesting were some of the artworks (frescoes) and messages painted on walls, the amphitheatre (arena) which had similarities to the other arenas that we have been to (the Colosseum) but on a smaller scale, but having said that, this baby still holds 20,000. The streets themselves were an interesting array of large flagstones/cobblestones, with raised stones (pedestrian crossings) to preserve the sandals when they were sluiced down. When walking through and imaging what it must have been like, it is very easy to imagine any number of the ancient walled cities that we have been visiting lately. And I think that this is the beauty of Pompeii, it is a snapshot of ordinary Roman life at that time, and an illustration of really how little things have changed.

Pompeii is well worth a visit, and tomorrow when we go to the museum in Naples (where most of the artifacts are now housed) it will make a lot more sense, having been to the site.

Finished the day today with some self-made pasta and sauce. What a great way to end another day.