Pompeii

Saturday, August 11th

Though conventional wisdom says that seeing Pompeii first thing in the morning is best, two early mornings in a row wasn't a popular idea with our group.  I've not mentioned that Rachel has been sick this week - she's been such a trooper it really hasn't effected our activities, but she felt pretty terrible in Rome, and since then her hacking cough has made sleep a little tricky - especially in the Hotel Spicy where all three generations were co-habitating in one small room.  The reason to see Pompeii in the morning is to avoid the heat, so we decided to go to the opposite end of the spectrum and see Pompeii in the late afternoon - which, by the way, was brilliant...the afternoon breeze had kicked in, there was shady spots, and it wasn't very crowded.  

So, that left us with a morning free to email, blog, read, and do my nails.  Over the years, Sarah has served as my personal masseuse, raiki master, therapist, nanny, silver polisher, seamstress (to name a few) but I believe this is the first time she has been my pedicurist.  It seems pedicures aren't something commonly done in Italy - or at least I haven't come across where they are done.  (I did offer her a chair!).   

We left Hotel Spicy after noon to take the bus to the train station.  At the bus stop we met this interesting young German woman who is traveling through Italy for 8 weeks "couch surfing" - the first time I've heard of that.  A social network site where people who want to crash on couches meet people with a spare couch to offer.  I had no idea!  After lunch near the station, we hoped on the train to Pompeii and arrived just about 4:00 pm.

Again we let Rick Steves' free audio tour guide us and were amazed by all we saw.  The excavated town of Pompeii gives us a very clear snapshot of what Roman life was like in the 1st century, the moment it was buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79.  Centered around the forum (as Roman towns were), Pompeii spreads out with street after street paved with stone and sidewalks lined with shops and houses on both sides.  The Roman baths, amphitheater,  brick oven bakeries, aqueduct system (with lead pipes feeding 25 public fountains), and frescos decorating walls and mosaics on the floors are well preserved, as are details of every day life.  I was particularly impressed with the raised crosswalks that allowed people to cross the street above the water used to wash the streets but were spread so that chariots could still drive through.  Brilliant.  The whole place was fascinating and again a reminder of just how advanced Roman society was over 2,000 years ago.  After our audio finished, we walked to the far ends of town in search of more dead bodies.  Because people were buried under the lava and the rock hardened before the bodies decomposed, they were able to fill the cavities left by the decomposed bodies with plaster or concrete giving us exact replicas of suffocating Romans.  Really morbid, but compelling nonetheless.  We didn't find the garden of bodies but did find the big ampitheater just before the grounds closed for the night.

We trained back and were met at the train station by a car to take us to our dinner location on the water.  Because Hotel Spicy is just difficult enough to get to up in the hills as was our restaurant down by the water, they have a pick-up/drop-off service from one to the other, free of charge.  We asked to be picked up at the train station instead and they were happy to oblige.  The owner of the restaurant Ruccio picked us up and drove us back down to the harbor (that was some Italian driving!) and we had a very enjoyable meal on the water's edge.  The kids and I even took off our shoes and played in the water between courses.  At the end of our evening, we were driven back to the Hotel Spicy.