Pompei

Today was the school trip to Pompei. Pompei was destroyed by an eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius in AD79 when it was completely covered by 60 feet of ash, and was forgotten about. It was then rediscovered in 1748 (by accident I believe) and the excavation works began. The city has been well preserved and gives a good idea of what a typical Roman city looked like at the height of the Roman empire - at the time of the eruption the Colosseum was already under construction in Rome.

A teacher from my Italian school gave us a tour of the ruins, and had some interesting stories to tell. It was obviously all in Italian, so we had to concentrate hard! A few that I will share - the picture below shows 3 large stones placed in the middle of the road - this was an ancient "zebra crossing" that people used to cross the road when there was heavy rains, so as not to get their feet wet (again this shows how the Romans were pretty smart with water).

The next shows a roadsign. As Pompei was a busy town close to the port, they would have lots of visitors, who in turn, had "needs"! Since this as AD79 there clearly weren't any neon signs giving directions, and so this was a subtle way of pointing the patrons in the right direction....

This last one shows the main square with a view of Vesuvius on the background. We were told Vesuvius used to be double the height!


Overall I enjoyed the trip. It was nice to have a knowledgeable tour guide, however sightseeing with 50 people does waste a lot of time, always waiting for people to catch up who have stopped to take pictures etc. On the way home we stopped in Caserta, to have a look at the Palace there. The palace was constructed in the eighteenth century for the king of Naples. It is another World heritage sight. We visited some of the 1200 rooms inside the palace! Here is a picture of one, they all pretty much looked the same, paintings on the ceilings and lots of gold!


So that brings to an end the week long cultural week in Italy. It was a fantastic opportunity to visit so many sights at no charge! If I am still in Italy next time they have another cultural week I will be sure too take advantage again!