Letters From London: Pedestrians in Pompeii

Indiana Jones would have loved Pompeii.

Welcome to Pompeii.

In fact, as an esteemed professor of archaeology and a world renowned explorer on the side (or is it the other way around?), he's probably already been there. Except for the fact that it's still on the slightly touristy side, and, of course, Dr. Jones is a fictional character.

If you're a history nerd like me, you'd love Pompeii too. You could even live there. Well, in the local town of Pompei, that is. The city ruined by the volcano Mt. Vesuvius years ago is spelled with two i's. Vesuvius is still an active volcano, however. It was belching puffs of white smoke as our tour bus rolled into the scene.

My travel companions Amy, Rachael, Kalli, and I had caught the bus from Naples, where we had arrived a few minutes before by train from Rome. After a delicious and nutritious (NOT) breakfast at McDonald's in the station.

The Pompeii ruins are only 25 minutes from Naples, so many tour groups, like the one we were with that day, begin there. However, Naples is a rundown city, with not many sites worth visiting to call its own. Even most Italians only travel through Naples, as opposed to making it their final destination.

A day at the theatre.

I honestly don't blame them. Naples is as sketchy as a windowless white van that hasn't had a bath in a while.

Okay, okay. Maybe I'm being too harsh on ol' Napoli. That doesn't take away the fact that poverty and crime have that city in a fierce grip. Caution is key here, ladies and gentlemen.

Perhaps I should've titled a blog post "Not in Naples."

I KID, I KID. But, in my humble, history-loving opinion, seeing Pompeii was totally worth it.

When we boarded the tour bus, everyone was given a different colored sticker to divide them in three groups. One group would be going to Pompeii, along with hiking up Vesuvius. Another would be then driving to some ruins. The third group, us, would be taken directly back to Naples after exploring Pompeii. Goody. More Naples.

When we arrived in the village of Pompei, next to the ruins of Pompeii, we were given time to check our bags into a cloakroom, before being introduced to our English-speaking guide, Max.

Max knew the ruins and the history of Pompeii like the back of his hand, speaking into a microphone connected to everyone's headsets so we could listen to tales from long ago.

Pompeii is huge. It is rumored to have had a population of around 10,000, which is close to the population of my current hometown in Missouri. The streets wind around, cut with grooves to allow water to flow easily through the stones.

We were led into houses and bathhouses, up and down commercial streets, and into the main square where there was an excellent view of Vesuvius, as well as a small archive where some of the artifacts taken from the city are kept, including the ash-covered corpses of a dog, and man, and a child cowering from their horrible demise.

Another thing, we ended up learning, was that fertility was a huge part of the culture of Pompeii. Now, because I'd like to keep this blog PG, I won't go into graphic detail about everything I saw, but I will tell you that Pompeii is not a place for those who haven't had the sex talk.

Let me put it to you this way. Don't take your kid on a tour of Pompeii if you're not comfortable with them entering a brothel.

In the shadow of Max

With the beds still intact, and explicit pictures on the walls. Max the tour guide, as our group had numerous little ones, decided that once we we entered Pompeii's rather large red light district, it was time to bring out the metaphors, because signs of fertility (I'll give you a guess as to what it actually was) were carved all over the walls,

Ew. So much ew. I'm twenty years old, and I was very, very uncomfortable.

But besides that one little side section, Pompeii was glorious. Archaeologists are still excavating there, so they block off different parts at a time, meaning that if you were to visit Pompeii soon, you might not see the same parts that I did.

I love studying and immersing myself into other cultures, and Pompeii was a great place to do that. Many of the art and mosaics are still intact and preserved, as well as businesses like lunch counters, bath houses, and bakeries. The history and former glory of an international site of commerce could still be richly viewed and explored to the fullest.

Far and Away

However, it was soon time to go back to Naples so we could catch our flight to Venice that very night. It was a very long day, but I'm really glad that we got to enjoy a day in Pompeii.

It was like my history textbooks coming to life, only better.