Once again, the thrusters woke us up (they are quite a reliable alarm clock) and we headed up to the Panorama Buffet for coffee and breakfast. Paul and Marlene eventually joined us and we planned our day. I had researched how to get to Pompeii by the Circumvesuviana train but made the mistake of talking with the attendant at the Traveler Information booth in the port terminal, where I was told that the bus is the best way to go (though I knew Captain JP and his fiancé and baby daughter had made the trip by train just over a month ago). We were told how to get to the bus- kind of- but when we exited the terminal we were besieged by taxi drivers all wanting to take us. Finally G negotiated one with a roomy van down to 25€ per person to take us, wait for us and bring us back and that seemed the easiest route to go. Sometimes it pays to pay extra. We raced down the expressway at about 80mph and were in Pompeii in record time. We had negotiated a three hour stay into the fare, so we had until 1pm to tour the site.
Entry tickets were 11€ per person (credit card accepted) and we started out following Rick Steves' walking tour for Pompeii but ended up using a combination of the walking tour and the map we were given when we purchased our tickets. Frankly, I was shocked by the size of Pompeii; I had imagined it to be a single archeological site with a pile of ruins but, actually what remains (mosty walls and streets and amphitheater) proves it was a sizable town by any standards. At its peak 2000 years ago, Pompeii was a port city with 20,000 residents. When Vesuvius blew, Pompeii was covered under 30 feet of ash and lay undetected until it was discovered in 1599. Excavations of the site did not begin until 1748 and work is still going on. Hovering ominously over the entire town is Mt. Vesuvius, still active and smoldering with almost constant cloud cover at its peak. It last erupted in 1944.
Quadriportico Scavi
Large and small amphitheaters
With Mt. Vesuvias in the background
At first we were taking pictures of every building and every arch but soon learned that we'd be there all week if that continued. We became a bit choosier then, and mapped out those specific sites that were absolute 'must sees' for the four of us. My two favorite sites were the baths and the brothel. During its heyday, Pompeii offered six public baths and thirty brothels. Each public bath had men's and women's sections. The male section offered a dressing room with stone cubicle 'lockers'. A steam room had a heated stone floor that steamed the water flowing out of a large fountain. Lettering on the fountain (I have photos of all of this that I'll post when I return home) reminded those enjoying the room which politicians paid for it and how much they had paid.
Photos from the baths:
The changing room
The steam room- water filled the basin and overflowed onto the heated floor, creating steam
The steam basin
The funding politicians' names
The restaurant across from the baths. 'Cause once you're cleaned up you want to eat!
My other favorite site was one of the brothels. This one was a hoot from start to finish. There were several small rooms with stone beds and pillows (ouch!). On the walls were frescoes depicting some of the various sexual services offered. The women shown were always white and the men were dark, which was considered sexy. I remarked that the frescoes were a bit like the photo menu board at a fast food restaurant. "I'll take #3, and supersize it". ;-)
Not exactly conducive to a rollicking good time!
Actually, this has some modern Italian toilets beat!
The streets were something to see. They were stone streets flooded daily from the city's aqueducts to keep them clean. During the flooded times, there were large flat rocks that allowed the residents to cross the street but that were spaced exactly to allow chariots to pass each other in either direction. It was an amazing thing to see the ruts in the stones left by years of chariot traffic. And the water cisterns had indentations where people would have held on to the edge when they leaned over to the faucet to get a drink of water. And that was the best part of Pompeii. We were free to walk almost everywhere, touch almost everything and wander the streets imagining life as it was 2000 years ago. It wasn't fenced off and protected and in any way separated from the people who were visiting it, as are so many other historical and archaeological sites.
Stepping stones for street flooding and cleaning and the chariot ruts
After three hours of walking on cobblestones, we exited Pompeii near the amphitheater and walked along the sidewalks of modern Pompeii back to the Porta Marina entrance where our driver was waiting. We drove back to Naples and he dropped us at a favorite local (not touristy) restaurant where we scarfed down huge plates of absolutely incredible antipasto and then individual Napoli pizzas and some local beers. It was a perfect way to end the day and when we were finished we walked about 20 minutes past the Royal Palace and the Castel Nuovo back to the maritime port and the Pacific Princess, arriving on the ship about 4pm. We.were.pooped.
We had just enough time for a short rest before we needed to get cleaned up for the evening. Though we had no reason to, we went to the Club Restaurant for dinner where I just had two starters (one seafood and one watermelon with feta cheese), though G did manage to eat part of a steak. He went to the 6:45pm mentalist performance but I returned to the cabin to attend to evening ablutions and start preparing this post. We will have a very early morning tomorrow with the Pacific Princess scheduled to arrive in Civitavecchia, the port for Rome, at 5am.
We have given our plans for tomorrow a lot of thought but have decided, especially since we have to move cabins once again, and already spent time in Rome before we boarded the Pacific Princess on October 28, that we will stay in Civitavecchia and see what there is to see there...and find some high speed WiFi. We are falling behind on checking on things at home and with several sea days coming up on the transatlantic cruise, won't have many more opportunities to stay in touch. The prospect of a leisurely day outweighs a few hours in Rome (a sure sign that we are past the point of wearing down and are well and truly tired).