Pompei, Italy

Woke up in the hostel around 730am, packed our things and headed to our complimentary breakfast. The breakfast room was already filled up with so many people, from Italian to English (U.K), young, old, men women. The room had pictures of all those who had travelled through that hostel, it was really cool to see. We settled down to a breakfast of yogurt, fruit, and a small PB&J sandwich. Nothing exciting, but enough to give us the energy we needed. Checked out around 9, and headed to find our hotel for the next night so that we could drop off our heavy packs. Ya that took us a good hour or so, apparently we weren't getting any better at this. Finally found our location at a Marriott that in fact was only 5 minutes from the hostel, and they were nice enough to let us check in.

Lost and looking like a tourist!!!

Streets of Naples

We found a bus to take us to Pompei, it took about 30 minutes to arrive and then about a 10 minute walk to the actual site. We stopped at a small side restaurant to grab some lunch, Max had an ok lasagna, and I had spaghetti cabenero, which is spaghetti noodles with egg and cream base, and ham....interesting but good. Then headed to a line that was about a 20 minute wait. Now I honestly didn't know too much about Pompei, so Max filled in some details, for those who may not know the exhibit showed the city of pompei after they had an earthquake years and years ago around 79 AD followed by the eruption of mt vesuvius that led to the destruction of the Roman city. Many died due to the falling ash that suffocated them. Those that did survive moved from the city, leaving it untouched other than the few people that have attempted to reconstruct some of the areas.

THe start of our adventure throught the maze of what was once Pompei

The city was HUGE, and a lot of the buildings and wall paintings were in such great shape.

These next few pictures are bodies of actual people that died during the eruption. The ash had perfectly preserved their bodies. It was sad to see as some were attempting to crawl away, while others sat there knowing they could not escape.

This is an actual dog that they had found in the remains :-(

Bath house

Beautiful artwork inside some of the remaining buildings

Break time, boy was it hot!!!

Actually grave sites where some of the dead lay to rest

An arena where Gladiators trained and fought, many were actually criminals that were forced to fight to their death. At one point a riot between the people broke out, and the Senate actually shut down the arena from any further fighting. Angie I did attempt to fight like the true Gladiator that I am, but there were no takers :-( It looks like I will have to try again in Rome!!!

This is where wild animals were kept and then released into the arena to fight the Gladiators

This is the location where they entered into the arena, with the crowds shouting over them. Look at Gladiator Max, so tough and ready to fight!!!

What an amazing place to visit, and wonderful history to learn and see. I don't even think we made it to every place within the city, but it was getting late so we headed back to the train station and then the hotel to relax. Oh and by the way, that night before going to bed we decided we were hungry and the only thing we could find open was McDonalds!! That's right, we gave in to the familiarity of the US....yummy Big Mac and Chicken Nuggets :-p

Tomorrow we shall make our way to ROME!!!!!!