If It's Monday, This Must Be Pompei

Tour buses are not my idea of a vacation. I would never sign up for a tour bus to Yellowstone National Park. I'd drive myself, and make lots of stops along the way. I'd linger at the interesting places. Here's the problem. Buses don't linger. But when you're in another country and you don't drive. It might be either the tour bus, or go without. I wasn't interested in going without, because today was volcano day. We went to Pompei.

The tour company was located very close to our hotel. We only needed to get up in time and drag our bones to the bus. Simple. On the way, we convinced the hotel to give us some of the breakfast breads. The hotel breakfast wouldn't open until after the bus had left. (This is one more reason for me to say nice things about Hotel Canova.)

You start a tour bus ride by standing around in a gaggle of tourists, who are all honking, "Is this my bus?" over and over again. Guys, the tour company is going to put you on your bus, just keep holding the sign they gave you that says, "I am a tourist, please take my money. Pompei 1-Day." The last thing they want are a bunch of extra tourists when the buses have left.

The bus set off and we get to see the Rome most tourists don't, the working class neighborhoods that lead you out of town. I do like to see how the locals live. Once you are on the outskirts of Rome, you start seeing extremely dense housing. Obviously, it is cheaper to live outside the city, and commute in. This type of housing is just now beginning to be built in Bangalore, India, but there, it is considered luxury living. It's not my cup of tea.

The bus has a tour guide who likes to tell us everything in minute detail. But, honestly, it's a bit much. When we turned into Napoli, a second guide took over. The first hopped off to get a cup of coffee while the bus circled through Napoli. The first thing the new guide said was, "Doesn't she talk a lot? We've asked her not to." Apparently, there have been complaints.

The density of the suburbs of Rome was nothing compared to Napoli; which is so dense you wonder what everyone does for a living. We missed the Pope by 24 hours. The tour guide said the buses could not get anywhere near the harbor the previous day because of the Pontiff's security detail. To enter the area, you had to prove you lived there.

It was also the beginning of a cold snap that brought rain to the area. It was so cold that it snowed on Mount Vesuvius, which is the commanding landmark in the Napoli bay area. This is very unusual weather, as it never snows this early in the year. The bus stopped for 10 minutes to allow us to take pictures of each other so we could claim we had "been" to Napoli. Honestly, I think I've spent more time on the moon.

The object of our desire this day was Pompei, which is on the far side of Vesuvius. Before getting there, we passed through the city now built on the old city of Hurculinium, which was also buried in the eruption of 79 AD. We passed through, but we didn't stop. No lingering on this bus!

Finally, you get to Pompei. It was time for lunch, which was included in the price. It's a sit-down restaurant, and we are seated with a family from Germany. We all minded our own business, and had a very good meal, and then father of the family asked me if we had seen very much of Rome. After I explained that we had walked across it, out comes their map. They wanted to know where the Vatican Museums were. They were using a regular road map, and it didn't really mark the points of interest. So I whipped out the tourists map a friend of mine in the States gave me. I know there are more of these in my hotel's lobby, and I can really help this family out. I made sure to explain about getting to the Vatican Museums early. They were very happy.

OK, we've had our long bus ride, and we're fed, and everyone has gone to the loo. Time to see Pompei! The second guide who joined us in Napoli will take us around Pompei for two hours. You can't really see it in that amount of time, but this is what we get.

She is very knowledgeable about what the archaeologists have so far uncovered. They have a good idea of how many people died, and many of the names of these people. But other than being able to describe the function of a particular building, they cannot tell you who exactly occupied it. There are grand houses with painted murals on the walls still vibrant enough to view. Outside, there is even some Roman graffiti visible. Near the end, there is a warehouse of artifacts from the digging. In this area are four plaster casts of victims. Three are human, in various poses, and the last is a dog. It seems a bit dehumanizing to have the casts warehoused with clay pots. I realize these are not people, but they are a proxy for the victims.

Vesuvius, it is believed, was 2,000 feet higher before the eruption of 79 A.D. than it is now. That material along with the eruption spewings came down the mountain in several directions, and covered both Pompei and Hurculinium. Pompei is about 5 square miles in area. Most buildings were two-storied. All of the second stories were blasted off by the eruption, and the rest buried. That's a lot of material to have to dig away just to be able to walk through the city.

I've been to several ghost towns of the American southwest. Pompei just needs to replace a few columns with cactus and you'd be in Arizona, or New Mexico. But what you don't see in the streets in the old west are large stones. At first I wondered if these were a bridge, as it were. They're about as high as the sidewalk. No, they are Roman speed bumps. As you are driving your chariot down the street, you need to slow down to get your wheels between the stones. It got easier with time, because the wheels eventually carved ruts in the street leading up to the speed bump. Get in the rut and you don't need a wheel alignment.

I would have liked to have stayed a lot longer. Another day on our own just wandering through town would have done it for me. The next time we visit a ruin, we need to see if there's a way to exit the tour and pick it back up another day. I did this in Bath, England and had a great day wandering.

But it was back on the bus and back to Rome. We just have two more days before we move on to Venice. There is still some very important Gelato research to do.