Pompeii

Now that we had a couple of rest days, we were reading to do our next big site-seeing adventure: the Pompeii Archeological Digs. Cal had been a couple of times and was really excited to show me around. We trained out of Sorrento, intending to see Pompeii and then be on our way to Amalfi, so we were loaded with all our stuff. Thankfully we found a luggage check at the Pompeii train station.

Ready and waiting when the gates opened, we spent the next 5 hours exploring the ancient Roman town of Pompeii, which had been buried in rubble, ash, and fire, when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. and spent most of the next 18 or 19 centuries undiscovered. Since the 1800s, much has been dug up and uncovered by both archeologists and people looking to haul off treasures and sell them. What remains, and the artifacts that have been found and saved, show a civilization not so unlike our own (minus for electricity, internet, and motorized vehicles). We explored homes, shops, temples, the town square/forum, villas, taverns, and brothels. We saw mosaics, frescoes, statues, and columns. Pompeii was a fairly large town, with its own theater, amphitheater/arena, and gladiator training area. There was an exhibit showing the intricate jewelry that people wore, tiny details in gold, copper, and precious stones.

We saw the House of the Faun, the villa where the Dancing Faun statue was found in the atrium pool. We saw lots of the little “7 Eleven” corner stores, where the countertops contained vats that would have held things like olives, nuts, maybe even bread, cheese, wine, or oil. We saw at many street intersections a fountain where people could get water—each fountain had a different face/head, and people would have used them as landmarks (“Meet me at the Tiger Fountain at noon and we’ll grab lunch!”).

In one villa, we were able to walk through to the back courtyard/garden, where a vineyard grows. Scientists have planted grapes that would have grown there 2000 years ago, in the same place where grape roots were found petrified from the volcanic eruption. You can even buy the wine they make from the grapes there. Behind the vineyard, an exhibit shows The Garden of the Fugitives, where 13 people were trying to escape the ash and volcanic material. As they ran, they were suffocated or buried. Scientists have made plaster casts of the bodies, and these are now shown in the exhibit.

Some villas were under restoration so we missed a few sites, and much of the edges are still under archeological exploration and closed to the public. We left through a northwestern exit—the Herculaneum Gate and saw one last villa, the Villa of the Mysteries. It is a more recently opened/restored villa, with mosaics and frescoes in amazing condition, some of the most pristine we saw in either Herculaneum or Pompeii. It seemed like it doesn’t get a lot of the main Pompeii tourist traffic, so it felt like a special find for us, and a cool way to end the site visit.

After that, our plan was to bus on to Amalfi, but we were not well-informed about the local busses, and in the end, we trained back to Sorrento and found a bus from there to Amalfi. That turned out to be a miserable, hot, winding, stop-and-go, crazy traffic, motion-sickness-inducing couple of hours. We do not recommend.

Our AirBnB in Amalfi was really pleasant, and we settled in for the night after a bite of local pizza, ready to rest after such a big day.

The Day's Stats

2 trains, 1 bus, and 9.9 miles of ancient cobblestones walked

The Day's Tips

We highly recommend avoiding the bus from Sorrento to Amalfi in favor of the ferry for a smoother ride with less motion sickness.

The Day's Favorites

Cal: Even though I'd been to Pompeii before, I had never been to the Villa of the Mysteries. It was cool to see a new part of the digs, especially in such good condition.

Val: My future house may have mosaics and a fountain in the entry room (the atrium, if you will). I loved every single example.