Pompeii

Today's itinerary involved rising at 7, having breakfast at 7:45, boarding the bus at 8:30 to head south for about 3 hours through Naples, carry on (keep calm) for a tour of the ruins in Pompeii, drive to Sorrento for a short walk (freetime), and then on to our hotel (just outside Sorrento, but still on the coast). 

The first notable image of the journey was the old Roman road, the Appian Way, which stretches from north of Rome, through Rome, and down to the southern tip of Italy. The road is still lined by Mediterranean pines and their characteristic flat tops. They are beautiful trees and I'd love to have one or two on the yard back home. The needles as in twos like red pines, but are about twice as long.   

We arrived in Pompeii at just before 12 and sat down to a traditional Neapolitan pizza (Margarita pizza - tomato sauce topped mozzarella cheese).

This man rolled out the dough and applied the tomato sauce and cheese.

This man used to long paddle to put the pizza in the gas-fired brick oven.

When they came out they looked like this! And on Thomas Kanke's scales of pizza awesomeness they ranked the highest of the trip so far - 9.3!

After the pizza we met our local tour guide, Marco.

Marco's style was to use an ongoing story of daily life in Pompeii as a way to thread together the various parts of this massive site (It would take more than two days to fully explore the 170 acre site, which once was home to 20,000 people, Romans and slaves.) He began by taking us to the gladiator's training site. The gladiators were celebrities of a sort. Below are the cells the gladiators were housed in while they trained. Marco's story included the possibility that in ancient Pompeii, because of the very limited rights of women, some of them would have made ​​their way down to the gladiator's area in order find love and acceptance.

Next we were taken to the amphitheater in Pompeii where a couple might go to enjoy a night of entertainment (likely a play) in this wonderfully designed venue with fantastic acoustics.

After the play the couple might walk over to a restaurant along the street for something to eat. On the main streets vendors would sell prepared foods. If there was water running in the street because of rain, the couple could cross the street and keep dry by walking on the raised crosswalks regularly placed along all streets.

Above is one of the storefront places where food would be sold - it was served hot and quickly Likely, from large urns sets counters and heated by fires beneath them.

If the couple was thirsty they would be able to get a drink of water from the public fountains that were at many street corners.

Either at the beginning or at the end of the day a citizen could enjoy one of the free baths available too all. In the public baths there were separate men's and women's areas, where there were hot and cold baths. Citizens were very concerned about their health. The picture below shows one of the areas of the hot bath.

The picture below shows a plaster cast of one of Pompeii's citizens who suffocated and died in the bath area. The plaster casts were first made ​​in the 1860s when Guiseppe Fiorelli noticed, as they were excavating the site, that perhaps the empty cavaties in the lava and ash were where humans had died. He arranged to fill one with liquid plaster. When the plaster was the rock hard and cleared away, they found a shape like the one above. Since then many casts of people in the final throes of death have been made.

Finally at the end of the evening the couple would head home to well-designed multi-room dwellings. Life in Pompeii was civilized and included many of the same comforts we enjoy.

Below you see us standing in the forum area of the city, the place where public affairs were discussed. You can seen Mt Vesuvius looming in the background. Before the eruption in 79 AD the mountain was a third taller, with a single peak.

After the tour we got back on the bus to drive along the coast to Sorrento - a good opportunity to take pics from the bus window!

In Sorrento Patrizia treated us to gelati!

Then we took an hour to explore the town, to shop, and of course to take more pictures!

After this, and after a fine dinner, some decided that yoga on the patio outside their rooms was in order! 

Tomorrow we're off to take a boat to Capri! The temperature is supposed to be 22'C.