First stop in Italy… We got off the ship, and headed to the Amalfi Coast town of Sorrento. From the Port of Rome, it’s a 1 hour train to city of Rome; then inter-city train from Rome to Naples; and finally a local train from Naples to Sorrento, in all a 4 hour commute. We did well rolling our duffle bags and a little (but heavy) backpack. Our B&B, Gocce di Limone was a short walk from the train station and they had an elevator! We had our own little apartment, what a set-up for our first 6 nights.
Sorrento is a lovely, easy going and picturesque location to commute to the Naples Archaeological Museum, Pompeii, and Herculaneum. All within a 1 hour train ride. The Isle of Capri ferries are a short boat ride as well from this idyllic corner of Italy.
In the year 79 AD, Italy’s Mt. Vesuvius erupted with superheated ash that rained fiery death on several Roman cities nearby. Pompeii and Herculaneum offer the best look at what Roman life was like nearly 2000 years ago. Mt. Vesuvius can be seen in the background of some photos.
That ash killed over 1,000 people instantly and buried the town, which was eventually forgotten. But 1,800 years later, explorers and archaeologists discovered Pompeii again. The disaster that had wiped out this bustling town also preserved it like an insect in amber. Beneath layers of muddy ash was a snapshot of everyday life in a Roman town, complete with bank receipts, graffiti, “for rent” signs, public mosaics depicting extremely graphic decorations on street corners.
The most famous aspect of Pompeii’s ruins is no doubt the hundreds of plaster casts that archeologists have made of the volcano’s victims. When the ash poured down over the city, people were killed instantly, in the exact poses they struck when they noticed their impending doom. As their bodies decomposed, they left perfectly-formed hollows in the ash. Historians inject these hollows with plaster, recreating the positions of the bodies, and sometimes their terrified facial expressions.
Although death and destruction was a tragedy, the wealth of information of how citizens lived their daily lives up till that fateful day is unique and indescribably valuable. When it was excavated you could see the paint on the walls, the furniture was saved, the sculpture was in place — it was just a snapshot in time. Food was in the storage jars, dishes were in the cabinets just 2000 years later.
Of course the experts came in and removed the good stuff and put it in the a Naples Archaeological Museum. It was a fascinating museum to wander through before visiting the ancient ruins..
