Herculaneum and Pompeii

The next day I needed to knock off both Pompeii and Herculaneum. These are just two of several sites that are being excavated following the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79 that buried the towns in the volcanic ash that would preserve them for centuries, and allow us a glimpse into the past. I was dreading having to get back on that revolting train (or one revoltingly similar) so I was pleasantly surprised when the train that showed up was much nicer and almost empty. I suppose it had something to do with the time of day, early Saturday morning as opposed to lunchtime Friday.

I headed to Herculaneum first as that site is by far the smaller of the two, and once I had finished there I would have the whole rest of the day to take my time around Pompeii. And it worked out well. I finished Herculaneum in about an hour and a half. It was interesting, but not as good as I had expected. I thought that more of the mosaics and fresco type adornments might have been preserved.

Herculaneum with Mt. Vesuvius in the background

It seemed every third building was a taverna!
But to give them credit, they also sold hot meals because many homes didn't have a kitchen...

So after Herculaneum I got back on the Circumvesuviana train yet again and headed to Pompeii.

And Pompeii was all I had hoped for and more. It is so huge that I didn't get around all of it even in the 5 hours that I was there. And the variety of the remains is excellent. Of course there are a lot of simple dwellings... as there are in any town. But there is also all sorts of other community, commercial, and municipal buildings as well as higher class villas. I'll leave it up to the photos to tell a bit of the story:

Bodies were preserved where they at the time of the eruption

The streets had stepping stones on them because there are no drains and they run like rivers in the rain

The medium of three amphitheatres

Fabulous mosaic floor!

In a public bathing room

Someone's bedroom

I took hundreds of photos and I can obviously only include a few here, but the place was fabulous. And there are huge sections that are still yet to be excavated.

I was absolutely knackered by the end of the day. I think that almost a week of 'touristing' without a break was starting to catch up on me. I decided that for my last night in Italy I should have one last pizza so I grabbed a (very average) takeaway one from a restaurant nearby and took it back to my hotel room with plans to hibernate for the evening and get an early night before another early morning and another travel day, this time from Sorrento back to Naples, and then on to Athens.