Pompeii

EH EH OO EH OO EH EH OO EH OO EH EH OO EH OO EH EH OO EH OO.

Yes. In case you were wondering, that was in fact my written rendition of the beginning to Bastille's "Pompeii"(who are amazing in concert if you ever get the chance). Lucky you, that you didn't have to hear my beautiful voice on the vocal version as I wrote it.

Anyhow, we went to Pompeii this weekend! It was a pretty last minute thing actually. Last week, we just bought the plan tickets and booked a tour. The rest we assumed we could figure out.



On the way there we took one of those fancy European high speed trains (how American do I sound when I write that?). It goes up to 190 mph. That's impressive. We traveled all the way to Naples in about an hour. Enough for a well deserved cat nap on my part. There we took a regional train (about 2 euro to take) to the actual site of Pompeii.

There we met up with our fabulous tour guide. I think she was a little surprised to see that we were all fairly young. Plus I think half of us have chronic baby face (it's a real condition). It's always funny to see what kind of accent the tour guide ended up with. She was British English educated so it was a mix between Italy and London. Although not the best picture in the world, she's the one in the middle below.

We were Super Tourists and said mozzarella before the picture.

She gave us the tour that no self-conscious school tour guide would, point out the latrines and taking us to what once the red light district. It was like Anthony Bourdain but with far less food and way more ruins. She's the best. That's all.

Some highlights from the day.

The size. I had no idea just how big the place was. In its time, it rivaled Rome. The sea also came up to it, which showed how much the land had changed since, mostly due to the amount of volcanic ash.

Look how cute we are using the ancient cross walk!

And it's not directly at the foot of Mt. Vesuvius either. It's actually some distance. But, when the eruption occurred, the top of it actually entirely blew up and off. It moved at the speed of light and covered Pompeii within seconds. Another fun fact, Pompeii actually experienced a tsunami at the same time as the eruption, explaining why no one could get away by boats. So essentially it takes the cake for the Worst Day in History.

There's not two peaks, just the cavity of what blew off.

One of the most impressive things about Pompeii is that because it was so buried in ash (up to twenty feet high) a lot of the colors are still intact, ranging from frescos on the walls, to plaster, to the marble at the stage of the theater. Usually ruins are so bare. I felt like I was in living history there.

A fresco in one of the villas we saw.

The ceiling of the bath house entry.

We saw a Roman bath and there we saw two preserved bodies from the tragedy cased there. One had died by asphyxiation with sulfur gas. The other from the heat. It was strange to see ancient bodies so preserved. On one, you could even still see the folds of the garment he was wearing. Random fun fact, which may be inappropriate for this paragraph but oh well: Romans, because they had lead poisoning from the pipes they used, were super short. Men were only about 4 ft tall, women 3 ft. Which explains why all the doors are so small.

 She also took us to the red light district (the lamp used outside actually used to give off a red light) and to a brothel which had been preserved. Because it was a port and there were sailors of so many different languages coming through, there was instead a McDonald's-esque menu of frescos depicting sexual acts on the wall. We ventured into one of the rooms where she showed us reviews of the women that had been carved into the walls as graffiti. The ones that the women could reach they would scratch out. The most poignant part for me was when our guide pointed out markings on the door to one bedroom. She said that these were the tally marks from a single day of work. There were twenty eight.

I know I could have been moved by a hundred other things, considering that it was Pompeii. But, being inside that brothel really affected me. Because, as our guide explained as we walked away, they were all prisoners of war-- slaves. They very literally had no choice. They were not even paid. At the time, you could go to a brothel for less than what it would cost you for a glass of wine. As a woman, I could not help but be moved.

Pompeii was amazing. It felt like taking a step back in time. I was awed by how much of it was intact-- from bath houses to bread ovens to water fountains. We only saw a small portion of the city and we could have definitely stayed for longer than we did.

So, don't live at the bottom of volcanoes kids. Until next time.

xoxo

lauren

(And don't forget: #laurentakesrome)