Woke up today at 9:30 in pitch dark. Crazy Dad didn’t realize that our windows had light blockers and thought it was the middle of the night… so then we rushed to get ready and out the door for a day trip to Pompeii. Clean lovely showers today for all, in the bathroom attached to our hotel. Sooo lovely. We even each got our own scratchy mini towel! Better than no towel, a hostel shower that floods with gross water and being afraid to let my feet touch the floor though!
“Friendly Pompeii” as the signs say, is a 2000 year old city preserved by volcanic ash. Preserved as in paintings within the buildings are still intact and plasters were able to be made out of the hollows people’s bodies made in the 20 feet of ash that enveloped everything. Soul soaked ruins. There are literally plaster molds of people on display who are in positions obviously caused by being enveloped in volcanic ash. When the area was excavated they poured plaster into the holes where they knew bodies were so we could see their death poses. One man was praying, and a dog looked like it had been having a fit. Dad bought an audio tour so he could learn all the history and a book about the place too. This is the first place he’s been completely excited about so we followed him around the ruins while he told us tidbits of history, and even gave us the audio bit so we could hear about the brothel and the amphitheater. The brothel had intact pictures of sexual positions to inspire clients. The room with doggie style painted above it had one of the many stray dogs of the ruins sleeping inside. There were graffiti carvings on the walls that have been translated as describing the beautiful women of the time, as well as complaints from clients about having contracted venereal diseases. The amphitheater was not as impressive as the coliseum, but experienced plenty of bloodshed nonetheless and the audio guide gave a rendition of the sounds of music and fighting that would have been heard within it. That part was actually a bit strange. So after many hours we climbed our way out of the maze of ruins, bought some meloncello and headed back to Naples to shower off our films of volcanic ash and grab some dinner.
Dinner was fantastic, with real pizza, pasta and prosciutto with melon. Then we walked off into the dark in search of ice cream to go with the meloncello we bought in Pompeii. Finally found some spongebob ice cream (vanilla with sprinkles) and skipped back to the hotel.
