After a rough morning in which we all had to meet up at 6:30, we finally made it to Pompeii at about 9:45. We then spent the next several hours exploring the ruins of the city. One of the first stops we made was in the forum. It didn't differ much from that of Ostia, except this one was larger and had more of the structure intact. Here's a picture of some of us hanging out there:
Hanging out with Ellie, Alexis, and Heather in the forum
After wandering around, and making several wrong turns, we were able to really get a feel for how the city was laid out. We walked through where stores would have been as well as different houses. A major difference from Ostia was that there were more affluent Romans living in Pompeii, so many of the homes were much larger than those we saw on Tuesday. Once we had our fill of the nice, residential parts of Pompeii, we decided to check out the sketchy part of town and visit a brothel. This was easily the most popular site for tourists, which is a bit ridiculous considering how underwhelming it was. Here's a picture I took inside one of the rooms, though I neglected to capture the erotic art displayed above the door:
Inside the brothel in Pompeii
Since before we even came on this trip, I was super excited to visit the Villa of the Mysteries. It is a site that I had learned about in previous classes, so I was so pumped to see the famous fresco hanging inside. To my disappointment, however, there were wooden slats in place in the windows looking into the room, so it was pretty difficult to get a proper look at the painting. On the bright side, we did see a stray dog sneak into the room which got all of us excited and made up for not being able to get a close look at the fresco. On the way out of the villa, we saw some restoration work being done, which was cool to see in person. Here's a picture of one of the workers:
Restoration work being done in the Villa of the Mysteries
The rest of our time in Pompeii was spent looking at other parts of the city, including the large amphitheater. It was a really impressive structure, but I'm disappointed that we weren't able to climb up the steps and explore. This was a site that I could have easily spent an entire day exploring, so I was bummed out when Aaron said it was time to go. To make up for it, we all ate amazing pizza in Naples. See below:
Margarita Pizza
This has definitely been the highlight of my trip to Rome thus far and I'm not sure if anything we do in the next week will be able to top it.
Hannah, I totally agree that this trip was amazing! I was in awe the whole time we walked around the city. It is hard to believe that most of the stuff there is over 2000 years old and yet is still standing and holding the shape of the city today. I have always been fascinated with Pompeii and to finally be able to witness it was truly amazing! Great post!
ReplyDeleteHey, Jonah! In addition to all of the really cool sites we saw at Pompeii, I enjoyed our visit to the museum in Naples. There were so many smaller artifacts taken from the city of Pompeii and it was awesome to be able to see some of them.
DeleteI've been really disappointed with how much we haven't been able to see due to restorations. At the same time, though, I understand why they have to be done. Otherwise we wouldn't ever be able to see any of these places ever, so I'll try to quit complaining about it.
ReplyDeleteHi hannah! Great post! I absolutely love Pompeii too and it was really cool to read about what you thought of it. I didn't know anything about the Villa of the Mysteries before so it was really cool for me to learn from you guys that the painting depicted kind of a mysterious religion! Why do you think the old time Brothel was so popular among the tourists? Us included haha
ReplyDeleteGood post Hannah! That Pompeii trip was an awesome trip, it was hard to get there but it was worth it though. All the sites that we saw there were awesome. My favorites were seeing the mountain that caused Pompeii's destruction and the plastic body forms, that was the main one. It was scary but cool at the same time I thought. Have there been any other trips that we have done that you have enjoyed so far?
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