Friday

Is that....Mt Vesuvius in the distance? Yup, we finally made it to Pompeii. After the monumental flood of Thursday (someone actually drowned in their basement in Rome), we got up at the crack of dawn to board the express train to Naples. I like traveling by train, except when you're traveling at high speed through the countryside, and then, "click, click, click" from the train, and it stops. We were stuck for about two and a half hours or so, total, and ended up being pushed by another train back to Rome, and then boarded another train, ending up in Naples much later than planned. It turns out the train track was damaged by the intense weather, which in turn, damaged the train. After switching to a commuter train, and twelve stops with Nate and I squashed next to some obnoxious tourist with poor personal hygeine, we leapt out of the train the second the doors opened, and breathed the fresh sea air of Pompeii. This photo is taken from the forum at Pompeii.

This photo is at the market place, where the sad casts of the people who died are displayed.

A nicely preserved fresco (hey, it's more than 2000 years old!) -however, mostly Pompeii decoration were considered pretty nouveau riche by most Romans. The mosaics and frescos are actually reproductions- the originals are in the Naples museum, which is good, because then I felt less homicidal with people who were abusing their privilege to see the site (climbing on ancient pillars, touching everything, climbing over barriers to go into unauthorized areas -no kidding, we saw all of these).

A major throughfare, with rosemary and pomegranates growing by the side of the road. You can tell this was a major road by the raised stones at the intersection- it was supposed to accommodate two way chariot traffic.

A nice photo of Nate.

A mosaic in the house of the Fawn, considered the only non-declasse house there.

The "doormat" at one of the houses- it means essentially "hail you."

I think people liked dogs in ancient Pompeii, as there were two mosaics that pictured dogs, and one entryway had a dog with "beware of dog" lettered under it. There are a bunch of Pompeii dogs there now that sleep in the sun, and I assume keep other animals out of the side. This puppy was asleep on one of the mosaics. (I sure miss our dog, Godiva!)