Napoli, Part II: Pompeii

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is this: Pompeii changed my life. It was my favorite place we saw the entire trip, and it did something to me that was beyond emotional. It was sublime. For that reason, this will probably be my best post, and I say that knowing that when I talk about Rome and tapas and croissants, you will think "Why? Why Pompeii?" I will try to tell you the best that one can when they attempt to write about deep, powerful, impacting, transcendent things. I will try.

Like all things in my life, this won't be without comedic relief and the occasional snarky comment displaying my fake ego.  We should start wit the ego part though, because our arrival at Pompeii was B.A.!!! It's like entering in to a museum when you go there, with lines and admissions and insane crowds.  The park doesn't open until late in the day and we spent the better part of the morning at Vesuvio, so we were arriving just as everyone else was.  Best part about a private tour with a personal driver who had no American driving etiquette? We rolled up like we owned the place! The driver just hit the gas, the crowd parted, and we came to a stop and hopped out front and center! People were staring. I felt like Jennifer Aniston, minus the perfect locks and hot body.

The squares you see in this wall are tombs.  The city was originally founded by an ancient Italian people and went through many different over throws.  First the Greeks came to conquer Pompeii, and then the Romans. The Greeks and Romans are the two cultures that built it in to the beautiful and elaborate city we see uncovered today, but the tombs were part of the original ancient Italian people who made this place home.

 We walked the streets of stone and saw the most amazing wonders. This was a courtyard, a public gathering space if you will, that lead in to see the smaller of the two theaters within Pompeii. This is where the gladiators or the animals would have waited for entrance in the large theater.  Unfortunately, the larger theater was closed the day we were there, but you can see the seats through these columns in the back on the left.

The small theater seemed magical enough to me.  It was here in this theater that I noticed a shift within myself. Daniel was so knowledgeable that he was more than just a tour guide, he was a historian, and Pompeii came to life with his words.  Amanda and were both fairly quiet throughout our time in the city, listening to Daniel and observing the world around us.  The atmosphere almost demanded it when you were breathing ancient air older than your brain could even get a hold of.

The base of the stage was marble.

As we strolled these ancient streets, we saw market places. Thousands and thousands of shopfronts. Political propaganda with peeling paint on the front of homes and stores supporting a politician.  The advancement this civilization had was astounding.

Pompeii was a city on the sea, a highly sought after vantage point that facilitated trade from all the corners of the known world at the time.  So much of the city is made of these shop fronts.

We visited one particular ruin that historians believe is the large house of a powerful Roman diplomat.  The home was marked with his name and a bench sat out front where he would receive people from throughout the day.

It was just unreal the technology behind the home. There was an open roof to collect rain water from, and a pool like structure in the ground to collect it. The home was complete with a shrine for the Deities, bedrooms, an office, and a corridor into the courtyard. The painting and colors on the wall that have stayed for all of these years, buried under ash and dirt, and protected during excavation are astounding. It was truly hours of awe in this city.  The architecture was VERY Roman. 

Surrounding the courtyard were more rooms of the house and the walls were once covered in elaborate paintings. There was a bathing/spa room, a dining room, and even a room where the Romans could go to worship their ancestors. 

Mosaic Tiling

Bathtub

Depiction of Dionysus and the stag.

When the city was first being excavated, everything was underground tunnels. Thieves would break in to the tunnels at night and steal real silver utensils to sell.  This particular band ended up trapped and died when the tunnel collapsed on them. They are seen in the room adjacent to the dining room of the same great house.

The city was huge. I cannot even attempt to explain it's size.  It is amazing that an ancient civilization constructed a city of that magnitude. I said as much, and Daniel reminded us that is was through the use of slaves. There were more slaves than citizens within the city of Pompeii.  

As we walked the stone streets, we noticed there were flattened boulders mimicking modern day cross walks at certain - seemingly random - locations throughout the city.  Amanda asked Daniel and he told us that as advanced as the city was for it's time, there was no plumbing, and everyone wore sandals year round because it is a hot climate.  The purpose of the stones was to avoid walking in the sewage running through the streets. Daniel looked at Amanda and said, "You know, how you say? Pah?" Amanda said, "Poo!" and Daniel excitedly said, "Yes, poo!!"  we chuckled and had a good time walking around on the poop boulders.

The detail in the columns and marble was beautiful.  After connecting the slavery to the elaborate details of the city, I was worried I wouldn't be able to appreciate it as much, but I did. It was astounding. Daniel knew Pompeii like it was his house. He was taking short cuts and alley cut offs, and more than once Amanda and I looked at tourists struggling with maps trying to get to the places in the city and were so glad we had Daniel.  He took us up a lesser known stair passage that lead us to a hill overlooking the city.  It was breathtaking.  

From that hill, Vesuvio seemed so far away. It was hard to imagine an eruption that reached that far and buried a city for centuries.  While we were standing up there, Daniel told us we were actually standing on top of more of the city that has just not yet been excavated.  Fascinated by the glory that these ruins truly are, I asked probably a little too abrasively, "Why haven't they recovered it?!"  It was then that we learned that they are prohibited by Italian authorities from excavating any further ruins until the current ones are completely stable for one complete year. Daniel said every single year, a wall falls and they start the counting all over again.  It is estimated that 20% of the city still remains buried.

One of the two peaks of Vesuvio over the city

As we left the perch on the hill, Daniel said he was going to take us to a brothel.  I am not going to post pictures of this particular area, but I am going to talk about it. If you are interested, I am sure you can google it, but Daniel warned us that we would see explicit art work on the wall. Remember that Pompeii was a trade city, a booming metropolis where people brought goods from all over the world, and as such, the prostitutes were also from all over the world.  Hundreds of languages converged in this one location, so the "menu" (for lack of a better word) at the brothel was done in photographs. Pointing seemed to be the sure ordering method.  I'm an immature child so I had a hard time containing my giggles, and swiftly switched from embarrassed and amused to appalled.  It served as a good reminder that the same vices and corruption we see in our world today existed so many years ago, and we can't seem to escape the cycle. Doomed to repeat history if you will.

We left the brothel and moved on to the main town square and market.  Temples were built surrounding it, but all that remains are half walls. There is marble everywhere! We were walking on marble!!

The wood and brick seen in these pictures was done to restore the area after uncovering it.  It was here that it truly hit me how astounding of an experience we were having.  We were walking through the very same town square that was once bustling with Greek and Roman warriors.  The gravel crunching under my tennis shoes is the same gravel that crunched under the sandals of a beautiful woman I picture with gold rings on her upper arms, long flowing hair, dark skin, dark eyes, and a playful smile.  Standing there was like an out of body experience and it was as if I could literally see the ancient people hustling through the square, children playing with rocks in the corner, teenagers laughing and gossiping by the fountains, old men arguing politics, and the sadness of what happened here, the loss of all of that life, all of that culture, all of that history, fell down on me all at once and I was saddened by the tragedy.

We saw the bodies. We did not linger long or take pictures of the tragedy right in front of us. I was grateful for the quick exposure to remind me of the humbling reality the ancient city faced, but neither of us lingered long there.

Daniel had heard Amanda and I talking about cooking. If you know anything about her, you know that loves to cook, and that she is damn good at it. I, too, enjoy the occasional dabbling in baked goods, but nothing like she or my husband like to do! Because he'd heard us talking about it, he took us to the bakery. I think we saw the original brick oven. No wonder Napoli is famous for their pizza! They have been doing it for more years than archaeologists can count!

For the sake of brevity, I better back off on some of the details.  We saw their versions of restaurants, which look much like modern day buffets. We toured areas used for community bathing and the time there also served as a location for meetings and socializing for the Romans. Business and personal affairs alike took place in these areas. The city did not have street names or signs, all meetings and directions were based off of nearby fountains, statues of Gods, or locations of important houses.  Some areas of the ruins were regulated by employees making sure that tourists were not using flash photography or touching the walls. Other areas were so abandoned that a person could have peed on the wall and no one would have ever known.

As we toured Pompeii, Daniel pointed out that a lot of the statues, art, mosaics, etc. were replicas and that the originals were at the National Museum in town.  I wished I had more time in Napoli, I would have gone to the museum to see them.

It was such an amazing tour full of rich history that I have never before (or since) experienced. You can only get those feelings in ancient places of the world. It felt like standing on sacred ground in holy places. It was sublime, and spiritual, and moving, and humbling, and unlike anything I have ever done before. I felt a legitimate sadness walking out of the sea gates to leave the city.  I was truly changed by the experience of being there.

Hunger was winning out though, and I was ready for lunch.  At the restaurant they served us pasta in a red sauce with egg plant. My stomach was still sensitive so I was careful with what I ate. We enjoyed the pasta very much though and I ate like it was my last meal once I knew it would settle well. After they took away the pasta, they showed up with a salad and we were thoroughly  confused.  Turns out in Italia, the salad comes second.  THEN they showed up with pork in a tomato/apricot sauce and (OF ALL THINGS) french fries. Our dessert was a chocolate cake with powdered sugar.

We noticed the bottle of wine said 11% alcohol on it at lunch, so after lunch we mentioned that to Daniel and he said that was a cheap bottle of wine and that the way Americans serve wine ruins it, in Italia they usually drink 14-17%! Mylanta!

After lunch we bought some trinkets for souvenir purposes and headed back to the ship. Our ship was beautiful and we enjoyed a few nights of dressing up for fun.  We fell asleep changed women that night, better for having experienced the kind of day that changes your life forever.