Day 5: Exploring Pompeii

(Don't forget to check previous entries. This is my third post today!)

Day 5 had us still in Sorrento. We had a scheduled shore excursion at Pompeii. I'm sure you all know what Pompeii is, but just in case, Pompeii was a fairly large ancient Roman city that was completely buried by ash when Mt. Vesuvius erupted around 79 AD. It was known as a very... open society, I guess is what the modern term is (they had lots of sex - with lots of partners).

Anyway, Pompeii was rediscovered by accident in 1748. During all the years farms had popped up over the remains of the city. Even now, only about 2/3rds of the city is uncovered. Archaeologists are so busy taking care of what's uncovered that they're allowing the farms over the rest of it to remain until they can excavate it. But because of being buried, it offers a great glimpse of life back in early Roman civilizations.



It was cool to see the original streets and to find out that they had food vendors by the stadium and how they tried to keep food hot. They also had big stones in the middle of the street for people to walk on when the rains flooded the street.



We didn't really go into any of the red light district places, but let's just say the ancient Romans had a much different view of sex than we do.


This is the Pompeii forum, with Mount Vesuvius in the background.

I haven't included any pictures of the plaster casts of people here, but it was cool how they came up with them. When the hot ash buried the people, it quickly cooled and formed a hard layer. However, the body would decompose, leaving the outline of the person who had died. When archaeologists discovered these cavities, they filled them with plaster, which would harden, and then they'd have a cast of what the person looked like when they died. It's kind of eerie to see the look of horror on most of their faces. Kind of surreal.



So we finished our trip. It was a lot of fun and great learning adventure. I definitely want to go explore on my own (rather than an excursion) some time in the future.

We took the bus ride back to Sorrento and did some more (window) shopping there, showing my mom all the places I looked at the previous day. We did stop at a shop before we left where we got several souveniers, including a nice bowl I bought. It was a great stop and I can't wait to check it out sometime in the summer (not this summer, but some summer).