Europe Day Forty Four - Pompeii

In the morning we walked to the train station. We boarded a connection train to Pompeii and it took about 2 and a half hours and 2 trains to get there. Dad got our tickets at the front booth and then we all made our way up to the entrance of  the Pompeii ruins.

We walked through the giant front gate into the forgotten city. One of the great things about Pompeii is that it is a perfect look into the past with all the homes that were covered after the volcano erupted. None of the pots and tools were taken and the city was in good condition because of the ash and magma that protected it from natural destruction as it covered the city so quickly.

Almost all of the houses were the same size and close together. There weren't any super big or super small, basically equal.

After a picnic lunch we got out our map and decided to head to the Arena where they held battles, city meetings, and rituals. Once we got to the Arena we saw all the rows carved out of the rock where people sat. Each Arena could fit at least a 5000 people. We walked around the rows and made our way to the center of the Arena. In the center of the arena Sage started dancing around the dirt stage.

After we left the Arena we wandered around Pompeii and saw the ovens, sinks, marble counter tops and the fountains and drainage system. After covering some good ground we headed over to the Amphitheater which was a bigger version of the Arena we had gone to earlier. Once we were inside we played tag around the giant Amphitheater center.

We took some photos and moved on to try and find the Pompeii plasters which are the plaster molds of the people of Pompeii who died in the eruption. When they were excavating Pompeii out of the ash they found body shaped holes in the ash where someone had died and decayed creating a hole under the hardened ash. They then filled them with plaster to make perfect replicas of the body. It took us a while to find the exhibit but once we did it was a bit sad. There were little kids, people praying and even a really sad one of a Mom trying to protect her baby from the lava. It was sad to know that these were the dying position of people who had lived almost 2000 years ago. (Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.) We all left the exhibit a bit sadder than before.

The sun was about to set so we went quickly to the small museum exhibit which wasn't all too impressive (but we had seen a lot of exhibits at bigger museums with many of the same kinds of pottery) and started for the exit.

We went back to the front gate and watched the sun set right behind a Centaur statue that was right at the entrance.

We left Pompeii and went to the train station where we had to wait 15 minutes for the train to come. Once we got on we were all very tired. We had dinner on the train from Naples to Rome. When we got back we walked for another 10 minutes to the apartment which was much faster than the first time we walked it when we first arrived. We found a better way around the park. When we walked into the apartment we plopped  down on our beds for the night.

Total trains: 4

Total miles walked: 7.3 miles