Pompeii and Herculaneum

Naples is a complete hole.




Herculaneum

You hear a lot about Pompeii, and it was fantastic, but the 'oh my god factor' is at Herculaneum hands down. Here's a brief layout the levels of preservation of Ancient Rome we've seen so far.

Europe: Ruins buried under banks and sunglass shops
Italy: Foundations of ruins visible
Rome: Large buildings somewhat intact
Pompeii: City structure, building walls (1st floor) and the odd mosiac

Herculaneum:



Everything.
The ENTIRE CITY.
EVEN FREAKING LOAVES OF BREAD.

The city (around half the size of Pompeii) was completely covered with a pyroclastic mud flow, sealing and preserving objects never before seen from the Ancient Roman world. As I mentioned, even bread was found, and in decent enough shape to read the seal imprint on the dough by the slave who made it (Daily Show 'whaaaaaa?!).

Beds, furniture, fabrics, mosiacs, wooden second floors, wooden wine racks, etc....

The people were gruesomely preserved as well, and around 300 were found crowded into the boat houses, hoping to escape the superheated atmosphere. That area was closed for our visit (part of not making it to the site until 5:30).

Absolutely incredible.


Mosiac in the House of Venus and Aphrodite.


Murals in a two story building in which freedmen would discuss slavery, and what they could do to help those still in bondage. Check out the near unheard of wooden beams holding up the second floor (carbonized from the heat, but still there)


A great restaurant and wine store, just shortly after closing.

So despite our great difficulty in getting to Herculaneum, we felt very rewarded. An added bonus is that both archeological sites were relatively free of people - which is really unusual. An Italian guy eager to get home for dinner was greatly exasperated by our slow crawl through all of the buildings, as I'm sure he had thought after such a slow day - he would go home early.

Pompeii

Pompeii was great, not because of the details (like in Herculaneum), but the broad strokes and structures of a large Roman city. Theatres, temples, bath houses and even a large brothel (with mosiacs of the services avaliable!!) gave a real intimate sense of how people lived. Hot ash and gas killed 2000 people in the city when Vesuvius erupted, and body casts (now replicas) are spread throughout the buildings and streets.

Unfortunately, the brothel containing the 'unique' mosiacs was closed to the public during our visit, so, no pictures. Below is the 'archealogical storehouse' of Pompeii. I could almost see a wooden box labelled 'Ark' in the back.

An incredible day, and two unforgettable places. We only had two hours in each location thanks to a 10 km hike to the alternate train stations (sudden Naples public transportation strike), but we could see spending days wandering around both places.

Further comments about Naples. The entire city is covered in garbage. So much so, that we weren't able to roll our luggage down the sidewalks, as 'garbage drifts' kept clogging our path up. Additionally, I would label it as largely unsafe, even in daytime. We were offered stolen videocameras ten seconds into town, which looked like they would have been stolen back shortly after (like a very expensive rental service). Anette observed some 9 year old kids breaking beer bottles and threatening each other with the stumps as 'adults' looked on undisturbed.

Suprisingly, modern Pompeii is actually a charming little town, and a great place to base a visit to the ruins (we had expected it to be seedy, and booked in Naples instead!). We've been fortunate to find Naples such an oddity in our travels, and look at it as part of the experience.

We've just arrived in Greece, and will be updating in a few days.

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