I Remember ... Pompeii

We woke up to clear blue skies and warm sunshine. I had been looking forward to this part of our tour for so long. In 1985 I read about the Mt. Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD in National Geographic. I was fascinated by it and read many books, articles and novels about this event ... never dreaming I would one day walk the streets of Pompeii ... a town frozen in time!
We packed up, ate breakfast and loaded the bus early in the morning leaving Rome behind. We now feel we have really started this tour. During the morning travel I felt a little motion sick (one of my worries!) but on our first stop we bought Coke and crackers and my stomach settled. The view from our bus window was lush and green with rolling hills and mountains. Beautiful!

Our Pompeii tour was with a guide and we had an hour and a half to walk the streets and see the ruins.
Pompeii was founded in 600 BC and became a booming Roman trading city, mostly middle class. It was once a bustling city with shops, bars, hotels and approximately 20,000 residents. As we view the ruins, it is hard to imagine that most of the buildings were covered in white, ground-marble stucco. It must have been very impressive!

It was interesting to see frescoes still painted on the walls of residences; glass cases holding casts of residents captured in their last moments during the eruption. There is even evidence of "fast-food" restaurants from long ago. Quite modern for those times!

At the end of the tour we sampled some Limoncello and bought three small bottles for the boys. We enjoyed a gelato lunch : ) before boarding the bus for Sorrento.