We left the hotel right after breakfast and headed to the train station for a day trip to the small town of Pompei, which is the site of one of the world's most significant archeological digs.
The story with this place is back in the day it was a fully fledged city of about 25,000 people, with all the mod cons like plumbing, gymnasium, bathing facilities, theatres, markets, brothels and temples for worshiping your favourite cult. So pretty much exactly like the suburb of Rockdale, except without a tennis club, as that sport wouldn't be invented for a few more years. Anyway, one day, the nearby volcano errupted, and they were stuffed. Most of the people fled, but about 3,000 either didn't have time, or were convinced that their Pagan gods would save them, and they were all covered in liquid hot magma, as was the entire city.
It is absolutely amazing how well the city has been preserved by the lava. You walk down the cobblestone streets and you can almost picture what life must have been like for these people over 2000 years ago. There is house afer house after house, all pretty much still intact. (These people only lived until 30 or something, what were they doing building houses that could last thousands of years?) Then you get to the public areas, the baths for example, which are basically set up like a modern day spa: Baths for men, baths for women, a sauna, cut outs in the walls to put your clothes.
I also particularly liked the theatre, and the ampitheatre. The former was used for things like plays and iphone launches, the later for things like gladiator battles (like on channel 7 in the 90s). Both were very well preserved, and really gave me an appreciation of how unbelievably impressive the coliseum must have been when it was complete.
The artwork and attention to detail that could be seen around the city was amazing as well. The houses of dignitaries for example featured columns with very intricate detailing on them, incredible paintings, mosaic tiled floors. Many of these are things we still associate with grand houses, but of course labour costs have gone up a bit since 80BC, and its so hard to find a guy that specialises in columns.
The story with this place is back in the day it was a fully fledged city of about 25,000 people, with all the mod cons like plumbing, gymnasium, bathing facilities, theatres, markets, brothels and temples for worshiping your favourite cult. So pretty much exactly like the suburb of Rockdale, except without a tennis club, as that sport wouldn't be invented for a few more years. Anyway, one day, the nearby volcano errupted, and they were stuffed. Most of the people fled, but about 3,000 either didn't have time, or were convinced that their Pagan gods would save them, and they were all covered in liquid hot magma, as was the entire city.
It is absolutely amazing how well the city has been preserved by the lava. You walk down the cobblestone streets and you can almost picture what life must have been like for these people over 2000 years ago. There is house afer house after house, all pretty much still intact. (These people only lived until 30 or something, what were they doing building houses that could last thousands of years?) Then you get to the public areas, the baths for example, which are basically set up like a modern day spa: Baths for men, baths for women, a sauna, cut outs in the walls to put your clothes.
I also particularly liked the theatre, and the ampitheatre. The former was used for things like plays and iphone launches, the later for things like gladiator battles (like on channel 7 in the 90s). Both were very well preserved, and really gave me an appreciation of how unbelievably impressive the coliseum must have been when it was complete.
The artwork and attention to detail that could be seen around the city was amazing as well. The houses of dignitaries for example featured columns with very intricate detailing on them, incredible paintings, mosaic tiled floors. Many of these are things we still associate with grand houses, but of course labour costs have gone up a bit since 80BC, and its so hard to find a guy that specialises in columns.
Napoli
After a train ride back to Napoli (Naples), we had a couple of hours to wait for our connecting train back to Rome, so we decided to explore Napoli a bit, with two main goals in mind: 1. To see some water, and 2. To have some pizza.
Now, I'm not sure what you picture when you think of a seaside italian town, but I think of that stuff from the travel shows, with the beautiful coastlines with houses going up into the hills, and all that. So trying to get to the water seemed like a good goal. It wasn't. Turns out that about all Napoli has on its coastline is shipping ports. So thats a massive fail for (1).
We then set off with a our goal of working our way to this mythical pizza place that Fiona had seen a review for online. Before long we found ourselves in some back streets, (or were they main strets? I'm still not sure). It was alright at first. Some markets were going on, there were some tourists, some locals, maybe the odd scooter going by. It was a picture perfect italian street. After about 10 minutes as we got further in, I started to hate every minute of it. It was a complete dogs breakfast. (Literally. I think I almost stepped in what used to be a dogs breakfast.) It stunk, there was garbage everywhere, cars and scooters would nearly run you over, vendors were yelling at you, and a puppy licked my ankle. On top of all that madness, we failed to find the fancy pizza place, and, defeated, went back to the train station to enjoy a nice, predictable mcchicken and Peroni.
After a train ride back to Napoli (Naples), we had a couple of hours to wait for our connecting train back to Rome, so we decided to explore Napoli a bit, with two main goals in mind: 1. To see some water, and 2. To have some pizza.
Now, I'm not sure what you picture when you think of a seaside italian town, but I think of that stuff from the travel shows, with the beautiful coastlines with houses going up into the hills, and all that. So trying to get to the water seemed like a good goal. It wasn't. Turns out that about all Napoli has on its coastline is shipping ports. So thats a massive fail for (1).
We then set off with a our goal of working our way to this mythical pizza place that Fiona had seen a review for online. Before long we found ourselves in some back streets, (or were they main strets? I'm still not sure). It was alright at first. Some markets were going on, there were some tourists, some locals, maybe the odd scooter going by. It was a picture perfect italian street. After about 10 minutes as we got further in, I started to hate every minute of it. It was a complete dogs breakfast. (Literally. I think I almost stepped in what used to be a dogs breakfast.) It stunk, there was garbage everywhere, cars and scooters would nearly run you over, vendors were yelling at you, and a puppy licked my ankle. On top of all that madness, we failed to find the fancy pizza place, and, defeated, went back to the train station to enjoy a nice, predictable mcchicken and Peroni.
Hilarious - very entertaining reading guys...at least a puppy licked ur ankle :)
ReplyDeleteGreat story - you should be a history teacher. The people of Pompei should have duck-and-covered. That might have saved them from the magma.
ReplyDeleteWhich TV Gladiator were you in the 90s? I think you were Storm - she was the red-headed chick.
I'm sad for you about Napoli, because I hear they have good sauce on their pizzas. Napoli sauce.
HJ