Sunday,
November 30 was our day in Pompeii. Today’s tour was very interesting. First we
made our way to a tour office to catch our bus after breakfast again at the
same little patisserie next door – I still don’t understand the appeal of your daily
caffeine in 2 mouthfuls. Pompeii is about 2 1/2 hours from Rome. We had to stop
in Naples to drop off some of our group for their tour to Capri and to pick up
our guide for Pompeii. Then it was finally on to Pompeii.
No matter
where you look in Pompeii, Mt Vesuvius is always there, watching. I did not
ever realize that Herculaneum and Pompeii were destroyed in 2 different ways.
Herculaneum was buried under the pyroclastic (or lava) flow while Pompeii was
buried under a layer of pumice and ash – the people there suffocated – an
agonizing death which you can see from the few casts (plaster of Paris body
outlines) that are on display.
Pompeii was
discovered by accident as the foundations for another building were being dug
and only a small portion of it has been excavated, but enough to make you
realize that it was a very large, busy Roman port town until that fateful
August day in 79 CE.
Pompeii has
always fascinated me. As a matter of fact, I recall doing an award winning
speech in Grade 8 about the day that Mt Vesuvius exploded. Mt Vesuvius remains
1 of 3 active volcanoes in Italy and surprisingly, the slopes of the mountain
are built up by human habitations about 1/3 up the sides of the mountain – not someplace
that I would chose to live.
No comments:
Post a Comment