We have decided to base ourselves at Pompei for the next few days, as the campsite is right next to the train station. This means we can also visit Naples and Sorrento without having to drive along the Amalfi Coast.
We arrived in Pompei on Sunday morning. We had read that the ruins were free on the first Sunday of every month but we couldn’t believe this was true. So when we arrived it was a nice surprise to see that the article we had found on google was right. So a brucie bonus…30 euros saved !!!
We had also read reviews informing us that there wasn’t any information boards around the site, so we got ourselves an audio guide for 8 euros as we wanted to have a bit of an understanding at what we were looking at.
Pompeii was buried under 4 to 6 metres of volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Versuvius in AD79. This happened at night so it meant many of the inhabitants were also buried before they could escape.
Pompeii has been a tourist attraction for 250 years and over 2.5 million people visit annually. It has the UNESCO World Heritage Status and they have recommenced excavations in 2018 and new discoveries are still being found.
Neither of us had realised how big the ruins were, we spent nearly 3 hours looking around and probably only managed to get around half. Although we enjoyed it that was certainly enough time, after 3 hours it all starts to look the same!
Below is a photo of one of the streets, with what would have been houses on either side.
In some of the houses the walls still have the original paintings on them.
Some houses had shrines in their gardens as the cemetery was outside of the city walls.
In other gardens there were marble statues and fountains.
The skulls were a poignant reminder of the devastation that happened here.
So were the casts of the bodies which show people in their final positions!
There is a small museum by the exit which houses all the artefacts that have been rediscovered.
All the time you are walking around Pompeii, Vesuvius stands omnipresent as a reminder of the destruction that lurks within.
