Before we left for Italy, we arranged online for two all day
bus tours through a website called Viator.com.
Two days after arriving in Rome we took the metro from our apartment to
Piazza del Popolo where several groups waiting for bus tours were gathered
under the Egyptian obelisk in the center of the Piazza. After we had assembled we walked out of the
main gate to the roadway and boarded a bus for Pompeii.
Driving south
from Rome the mountains on either side of the highway become noticeably drier,
trees giving way to bushes. The towns
seem grafted onto the mountainsides while the broad central valley where the
highway is is empty except for industrial buildings and farmland. We stop for coffee in Cassino at a café with
the famed Abbey in view above us. Our
tour guide tells us that the Americans destroyed the Abbey in WWII because they
thought the Germans were there, but that it was full of war refugees.
We drove on until
we got to the ruins of Pompeii. It is
bigger than I expected, acres and acres of buildings and roads, and people that
had been buried in ash by the volcano Vesuvius which stands dramatically over
the city. The buildings, according to
our guide, exhibit a mix of Greek and Roman construction, as it was initially a
Greek ruled area then a Roman city. You
walk the streets from house to house, shop to shop. There is an area where gladiators were
trained, an amphitheater and a great rectangular town commons ringed with
collonaded buildings. The streets are
paved with basalt blocks with raised sidewalks also of basalt on either
side. There are crossing areas of basalt
stepping stones with the grooves of chariot wheels worn between them. There are even white reflective stones woven
into the pavement designed to reflect the light from torches attached to the
walls of the buildings and light the way for night travel. They had underground sewage, running water in
lead pipes, heated floors, and bathhouses.
It is truly like stepping into a city that has been abruptly abandoned
and being able to walk into the houses of even the most wealthy and
powerful. You can picture the hustle and
bustle of a city, all the business of life taking place on these streets and
within these walls, because so much of it is still here including the bones of
the dead and the empty jugs once filled with wine or oil.
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