A weekend in Rome - Pompeii & Herculaneum

Republishing from September 2017...
If Rome was magnificent, Pompeii is fascinating and Herculaneum ever more so!

We took a day trip to Naples for a tour of the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, so that we can accompany our dear friends Ivo and JR on their Euro trip.

To give you a bit of history, Mt Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD spewing lava and ash catastrophically for the two places and many other cities. Pompeii and Herculaneum were both between 7-10kms from the mountain and with lava flowing at 80km/hour and hot gases ever faster, the towns' people had little warning, especially considering that Mt Vesuvius had been dormant for 800 years prior.

We first arrived at Pompeii.
To tour an entire town would take you a couple of days one would think and we had a couple of hours. We picked out what we wanted to see, nevertheless we got lost. You see, it is very much a city. It has street names, a town center, the market, residential quarters differentiating the haves and have-nots, and not one but two theatres, not to mention the main amphitheatre. Pompeii must have been a metro of its day.

What people probably find fascinating is the decorations in some of the rich houses. They had these mosiac patterns on the walls, on the ceilings and even on the floor. Some had enamel paintings which are largely lost but you can still make out the structure of the painting. Many of the houses of the rich also had nicely maintained gardens with pathways and sculptures well preserved. A brothel is also a popular spot, for the well-preserved paintings. The market square is so impressive with its large pillars and it is also here where they foundthe remarkably preserved bodies of a dog and a hunched up man, under all the volcanic ash. 

What I found most fascinating was the fastfood restaurant on every other street. They have this kitchen area and serving area so fundamentally similar to any fastfood restaurant you can think of. That little Chinese place around corner from my office has the same layout. That tells you that this is the same city as today. Might have had horse carts instead of cars and people had some zebra crossings so they don't set foot on the road, but fundamentally it's the same as today. We live the same way with the same differences between rich and poor and gather around market squares.

Herculaneum is slightly different. Although it's currently dug up underground and is far from the sea, back then it was a multilevel Hamlet on the sea. Hence it doesn't have the same roads that Pompeii has and neither did it have it's organised structure. Roads are narrowing and winding, many ending in stairs at you get closer to the sea. Not unlike the historical center of Edinburgh. It has its own charm, that of a small community. When they dug up Herculaneum, they underestimated the number of people who lived and died there. The archeologists assumed that the people of Herculaneum had too little time being too close to Mt Vesuvius and hence couldn't have run far. But as they continued to dig they found a closed warehouse near the erstwhile harbour where at least 300 took refuge or may be waiting for boats to get away from the lava. A grim picture. But it also helped the archeologists figure out where the sea used to be versus where it is now and all the land mass that now exists between Herculaneum and the sea has been contributed by Mt Vesuvius, albiet over multiple eruptions.

Today there are 3 million people living in the vicinity of Mt Vesuvius which last erupted in 1944, compared to the 800 years it was dormant before spewing lava on Pompeii.