Pompeii

Continuing with the last trip...

We left Paestum and moved on to Pompeii.  Pompeii was really awesome to see.  Everything in the city was so well preserved, thanks to being buried under ash from Mt Vesuvius.  If I remember right the eruption was in 79 AD, the city of Pompeii was actually trying to rebuild itself from an earthquake that had happened some years earlier.  This earthquake is responsible for some of the damage caused to buildings around the city.  The plaster casts of the voids created in the ash (where people and animals were buried) gave an eerie sense of what the final moments of the city were like.  Unfortunately many of these have been moved to a museum in Napoli.  Wandering around Pompeii I really could almost imagine myself living in that time period.  It was really an interesting experience.  I took a lot of photos in and around Pompeii.  They don't really even come close to matching the experience of being there, but I've attached a few to sort of give a sense...

The view down one of the streets, you can see the ruts worn by wagons/chariots

An interior, all of the color on the walls is original and preserved from the ash it was buried under.

Interior court in one of the houses, all coloration here is original...

Metal inlay, found in the bath complex

One of the plaster casts that remains in Pompeii

The metal gate to the this area was left open, so we figured it'd be ok to wander around...

A view down a another roman street. 

Sam and I at the circus/colosseum in Pompeii 

Paestum

And now with the continuation.

After a thrilling night at the hotel on the deserted beach, we took the 2 minute bus ride to the Greek temples at Paestum.  These are some of the world's best preserved temples... The day we were there was brisk at best.  Attempting a sketch meant freezing your hands off.  I kept mine in my pockets.  The photos below show the completeness of these temples.  Pretty cool considering how old they are.

Apocalypse Beach

After the mini archeological expedition we all boarded the bus, and headed toward Paestum.  After stopping momentarily in a deserted bus depot, then taking a wrong turn and having to back down a narrow street resulting in a complete congestion of a roundabout, we finally arrive at a our hotel.  Not wanting to just sit around in the hotel room, and with the beach only meters away, I decided to go explore a bit.  The beach was quite deserted.  So deserted that it felt like I was in some sort of post apocalyptic thriller. You know the kind, where you and your small group of friends are some of the few left alive, wandering through the crumbling remains of a brighter time.

The Return

So earlier today Mike and I returned from our trip to Baiae, Paestum, Pompeii, Napoli, Capri, Sorrento, Amalfi Coast and Mt Vesuvius.  The first destinations (Baiae, Paestum, Pompeii, Napoli and Capri) were put together through our University as a field trip of sorts.  In Baiae we checked out some old thermal baths.  It was during this endeavor that several of us, myself included, wandered down a pitch black corridor.  We used our cameras as flashlights and ventured deeper into the under-level of the maze of the bath complex.  The corridor terminated in a room of maybe 20 feet in diameter, with two adjacent rooms of a similar diameter. Still with what appeared to be original paint on the walls... It was incredible.

On the floor there were small remnants of columns.

Patrick volunteered to climb the wooden ladder up out of the first room, what lay above was not enticing enough for any of the rest of us to climb the ladder and then scale the 45 degree slope coated in dust to the top...

That was essentially the highlight of the Baiae baths for me.  Although the Temple of Echo, and the other randomly discovered spaces were really impressive as well.

Temple of Echo

View down from the side window of the Temple of Echo

Looking down from the oculus

Another discovered space

I'm afraid this is as much of the trip as I will be able to post this evening.  I am simply too tired, it is 4 a.m. after all...

Stay tuned. The eerily deserted beaches of Paestum lie ahead.

Off to the coast!

So its been a while since my last post.  We had a review yesterday so I was a little preoccupied with that.  Now that all that business is over I can get back to enjoying Italy.  This last weekend a few of us went to check out some catacombs along an ancient Roman road.  The road was totally not designed to handle two way traffic and pedestrians.  I was fairly certain we were going to become the victim of some sort of tragic hit and run accident every time a car went by.  Along the way we noticed something that we thought looked 'cool' and paid the 2 Euro fee for a ticket.  Turns out it was the Circus of Maxentious.  Not sure on the spelling of that one but it should be close enough.  We wandered around there for a while and then moved on, continuing down the Roman road.  We stopped at a castle that we thought would be cool.  Mike persuaded us to spend the 6 Euro on a ticket, which turned out to be a ticket to a very lame space within the castle, maybe our expectations were too high?  Is climbing to the top of the castle really too much to ask for?  Regardless of our expectations, we did not get to climb to the top.  We checked out a few sculptures and on our way out asked for a reminder of the other sites for which our ticket was valid.  We were told it was valid just down the road, at a villa.  I unfortunately can not come up with the name at the moment, but it doesn't matter much what it was called.  We never reached it.  We walked along this Roman way, looking at (and climbing on/in) monuments from antiquity.  After a couple hours we gave up our search and began to return to Rome.  Our return trip is entirely another story...   Long story short (because I'm tired) is that we made it back home after taking several busses and wandering around aimlessly for a while. Upon our return we realized we were a mere 400 meters from the Villa we were searching for... 

Photos of our excursion are up at

http://s56.photobucket.com/albums/g198/b82ta/Roma/

Sorry to cut the story off, but I am exhausted.  Ho stanco (if you want the Italian equivalent...) 

Until a later date,

Adam