Italy 2018: Pompeii

Although we had rain overnight the morning was clear, sunny and warm. With breakfast out of the way we settled Jamie in the van and walked the short distance to the nearest entrance to the Pompeii ruins. This turned out not to be the main entrance which meant the queues were not long although it was obviously meant for guided tours, being close to where the coaches parked – tour guides got priority at the ticket office!

Having purchased a map at the campsite yesterday we set off, only to find we had misread the map and weren't anywhere near where we thought we were! No worries, we eventually got it sorted and made up our own route, wandering slowly along the lanes marvelling at how well preserved these ancient buildings were compared to other Roman sites we have visited.

Just to enlighten readers, Mount Vesuvius, just a mile or two to the north of the city, erupted suddenly in October AD79 after more than 800 years of inactivity with such violence that the dust and smoke obliterated the sky for three days and buried the city up to roof level in hot ash. Few of the 15,000 residents escaped; others sought refuge in cellars and were destined to die. The whole place came to a stop and was left that way for over 1600 years. Only the large public buildings were plundered, those which stood out above the ash, and the city fell into a deep sleep until the spring of 1748, when the first attempts at exploration were made. Since then there has been an almost constant programme of discovery, protection and preservation, however there is still so much to do that it may never be fully completed.

Today, of course, most of the buildings have been left as they were excavated but several have had some restoration work done. Old records have obviously survived because all the streets have been named, and city blocks numbered as they would have been originally. Quite a bit of internal decoration survived, some of which is on public view, and several of the more important buildings have been concentrated on to provide points of interest. Even the “roads” have been left as original, complete with the grooves made by cart wheels and even kerbstones and drainage channels.

To be fair, much of it is very much the same as everywhere else and once you've seen one ancient street you've seen most of them although it is fairly obvious which were “the better parts of town”. Some of the larger constructions, such as the amphitheatre, remain much as they were when the disaster struck and are interesting enough but the crowds, including long straggles of “crocodiles” of every nation with their attendant flag-waving guide, detract from the overall impression. But if there were no visitors, there would be no funds to carry out the restoration and renovation so there has to be a balance – however even the guidebooks comment on how popular a tourist destination Pompeii has become.

Eventually, of course, as lunchtime passed and the sun still shining bright and hot, we started to get a little “Pompeii'd out” so headed for an exit, through the obligatory gift shop of course, and across the road back to the van. We're very happy we made the effort.

Once again a collage of some of the better photographs.