Pompeii, with Vesuvius in the background.We went to the ruins at Pompeii. What a brilliant place. It is massive and because it was buried by the pumice and dust of the volcanic explosion of Vesuvius in 79AD it is nearly completely intact. The roofs caved in and many of the statues have been removed to the Archeological Museum in Naples, but any restoration has been done to the benefit of the place and brings it to life more.

We arrived early to make the most of the day. We’ve been to enough historical sites in Italy to know that there is ususally no information (never mind in English), so you need to have a guidebook, an audio tour or a tour guide. We chose the tour, as you can ask questions. Our guide was a friendly elderly Italian gentleman and we were the only non-Americans in the group. He knew how to work a crowd for tips. You only need to mention the words ‘2000 years old’, whilst pointing at something, to Americans and they go into raptures of delight. Our guide did this a lot. He was pretty knowledgeable and after more than 2 hours we had seen the highlights of Pompeii.

A lot of the houses still have frescos and mosaics intact and you can see gardens and temples. We even visited a Roman brothel (lupanare) with the ‘menu’ frescos still visible above the doors to the rooms. As the tour ended the skies opened and we sheltered in the amphitheatre before making our way to more of the site. We left just as it was closing, still having only seen a fraction of the whole area.

It poured most of the evening, so we only ventured out for a quick pizza and then back to the hotel for a movie.

See photos of today.

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