Pompeii

For some reason, I have wanted to go to Pompeii for a long time. I am dedicated to the idea that each birthday decade should be celebrated in an exotic location. I spent my 30th birthday swimming in the phosphorescent bays of Puerto Rico. And I had hoped to spend my 40th birthday in Pompeii. Alas, due to the unexpected miracle of Lanna's arrival, I spent my 40th birthday in Ardmore PA. We did go to see the Pompeii exhibit at the Franklin Institute, though.

When we decided to go on sabbatical to Europe, I knew Pompeii had to be on the list of sites. So we prepared for an epic day of travel. We first took a bus from Katherine's apartment to the Rome train station. That was pretty easy. We then took a high speed train to Naples. That was exciting! You can see that Joey (and Sammy too) were excited about the "interesting nose" of the high speed line. The train also has a "track cam" and a speedometer so you can tell when you get up to 300 km/hr! 

We then took a local commuter train to Pompeii. That was pretty bad. It was packed, and since we are less pushy than Italians, we did not get seats. Despite the fact that I had a sleeping baby in the Bjorn. And stood staring at the people sitting in the seats, trying to make them feel guilty. No luck with wishing guilt, but someone did finally get up and Joey and I got to the seats first. 

Although the train was not too fun, it did let us off right outside the Pompeii site. You then buy some tickets, either accept or refuse the multitude of guided tour offers, pick up a map that you think will be helpful, and head in. Here is the impressive first view of the site:

You then walk up a ramp to go into the city. The same ramp and stones from hundreds of years ago! In fact, many of the stone streets in Pompeii have ruts from the constant chariot traffic. I found that super cool. Many Pompeii streets also have large stones in them. Each night, they flooded the streets with water to wash them, and these large stones allowed people to walk across the street without getting their sandals wet (Joey asked why they wore sandals all the time!). And since Roman chariots were all the same size, they knew each chariot could go over the large stones. You could tell how many "lanes" the road had by the number of stones.

At the end of this road, you then move into the large impressive forum. In the background is Mount Vesuvius. You can see that it has two peaks, but in fact, if you connect these two peaks to make a larger triangle, that shows the original size of the mountain. The two remaining peaks are the result of the volcanic explosion.

Lanna remained unimpressed.

There are amount a bazillion things to see around the forum. The Pompeii site is enormous-- much bigger than I expected. Alas, as we made our way around the forum, our kids were already getting hungry and bored. Sammy began to excavate on his own with his Ferrari, and Joey moved into pigeon chasing mode. Luckily, the site was not too crowded as the weather was supposed to be bad that day. In fact it was warm and partly cloudy.

All Pompeii websites give you multiple warnings to either bring food and water or eat somewhere far away from the touristy site. But we couldn't carry that much food or water, given that we were carrying 2 kids (Pompeii is not stroller friendly). And our kids were starving, as usual. So we had lunch in the cafeteria on site-- crazy expensive! Even after lunch our kids were not so excited about Pompeii, as noted in their posture in this picture. At least Lanna finally woke up.

Although Joey was more excited when he decided to become "Coke Hero."

We started to walk around further, trying to follow our Rick Steves podcast and the map. Unfortunately, many parts of the site are closed at any given point, and the street names on the map are not actually listed on the streets. Ah, Italian efficiency! We did manage to see some famous sites, like the Poet's house, the Beware of Dog Mosaic, and the Fawn's house with its famous mosaic and tiny Fawn.

We also found some amazing baths. In this picture, Sammy is clearly admiring the ceiling which had ridges in it to prevent the condensed water from the steam from dripping onto the bathers' heads! Those Romans were clever.

At this point, we had been in the site for about 3 hours and the kids were fading rapidly. Sammy screamed about being in the backpack, about being on my shoulders, and about anything else he could think of. So we headed to the smaller amphitheater (the larger one was too far away). We started with tragedy, when Joey broke the earpiece off his sunglasses.

We then moved into comedy, with Lanna lighting up the place.

And last, a joint tragedy/comedy by Sammy and Joey respectively. I'm not sure the audience appreciated this as much as we did.

We then did the reverse trip - commuter train, high speed line, bus - to get back to Katherine's apartment in Rome. Everyone was exhausted. Overall, it was a successful day. It was interesting to see Pompeii, which was completely different from how I imagined it. But someday, Jay and I will have to go back and see it in a more relaxed manner to fully appreciate it.