Pompeii

100 Places to See Before You Die:

Pompeii

Italy

When I write any of these "100 Places…" blogs, I feel like I probably spend a little too much time on the history or background.  Let's be honest, Wikipedia can tell you a lot more than I can about any of the places on my list, so I'm going to try to just glaze over the facts and maybe relay a few personal experiences and thoughts on future posts.

Pompeii was once a thriving city of ancient Rome….until 79 AD when Mount Vesuvius erupted and completely wiped it from the face of the earth for over 1600 years.  While a recorded rediscovery of Pompeii can be found as early as 1599, serious excavation of the site didn't begin until 1860.  Today it is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Italy and receives over 2.5 million visitors per year.

  

Europe offers countless opportunities to view ruins and ancient sites, but what makes Pompeii unique, and puts it on this list, is how well it's preserved.  The eruption buried the entire city, and most of its inhabitants, under about 30 feet of volcanic ash and lava in a very rapid manner.  This effectively "froze" it in time.  Walking around the site today offers an unprecedented vision of how everyday life may have been in the city.  unlike most ruins, It actually feels like you're walking through a town as the streets and houses are very clearly defined.

Everyone is familiar with the famous bodies from Pompeii.  They have many of them on site and others have toured the world or become permanent exhibits in museums around the globe.  These fascinating figures are owed to Guiseppe Fiorelli, who was in charge of the excavation in the 1860s.  He surmised that gaps in the ash were spaces left by decomposed corpses and filled the spaces with plaster.  The recreations of the victims are amazing, some even showing visible expressions of horror on their faces.  You may notice that many of them seem to be covering their mouths, indicating that they died from the poisonous gases emanating from the eruption. 

 

While they found many human victims in Pompeii, only six dogs were discovered.  It is theorized that most of the animals could sense something was coming and fled.  This dog was wearing a collar which would indicate that it was tied up and unable to flee.

Another fascinating result of the preservation of Pompeii are the original frescos on many of the walls.  While some of the most famous are located in the villas of the wealthy, perhaps the most interesting are located in the town brothel.  Pompeii was a port city, so visitors spoke many different languages.  The town brothel dealt with the language barrier by painting scenes of different sexual acts on the walls.  Patrons could simply point to what they wanted.  Think of it as a menu of sorts.

Pompeii is located just outside Naples.  Naples isn't really my favorite Italian city if I'm being honest.  It's big and dirty, even by Italian standards, and just lacks the cultural feel or charm to me that some of the other Italian towns possess.  That said, it's a necessary jumping off point for visiting Pompeii as well as Capri and the Amalfi Coast.  Plus, it's the birthplace of pizza so it can't be all bad.

Visiting Pompeii can be done by yourself or with a tour.  The tour is interesting if you're OK with being on everybody else's pace.  With a decent guide book you can tour yourself and spend hours checking everything out.  You'll find the usual souvenir stands outside and a few places to eat.  Other than the site, the area is nothing special. 

 

The mighty Vesuvius still towers over Pompeii and Naples.  By the way, it's still an active volcano.  It's probably not a matter of "if" Vesuvius erupts again, but "when".  When it does, it will be devastating!  Well over a million people live in what would be considered the "Red Zone" today, a far cry from the 20,000 or so residents in 79 AD. 

Pompeii is unique when it comes to ancient ruins and certainly deserves a spot on the "100 Places to See Before You Die" list.  Branelle and I are glad we toured the site, but haven't really felt compelled to go back on subsequent visits to Naples.  Once is probably enough.  Another interesting thing to do in the area is to travel to the top of Vesuvius.  You can take a tour and hike all the way to the rim, actually staring down the crater and gazing over the Italian coast.