Pompei

After 5 days in Rome Taylor and I felt like we'd seen everything important and we were ready for a day in the car just sitting.  Ok so we just got a half day since everything's pretty close in Italy, but we made it to Pompei after just one wrong, ridiculously scary wrong turn into the slums of Naples.  But we survived and the cloud cover and cooler weather was a treat.  Taylor had been to Pompei before on a cruise with his family and he was excited to see it again and for me to see it.  

There it is, off in the distance, up on a hill.

The amazing thing about Pompei is that it is so well preserved after all these years.  In Rome we got to see the stones that were still standing and that was amazing, but to see a whole town almost with all the buildings and statues mostly intact and even some of the mural paintings still preserved, well it was really neat to get that kind of a glimpse into what life was like.  The reds and blues here on the walls are original paintings.

The size and number of statues was staggering.  I'm just not used to seeing that much in the United States, but they had them everywhere.  They really loved art.

This is the main town square where there would have been shopping and commerce.

Of course some parts of the pieces aren't perfectly intact, but it was amazing to see how close they were.  There was a motif in Pompei of small heads being added to random parts.  Here there's a miniature head added to the horse's side.

Some of the buildings are crumbling after years of erosion and it was lovely to see the grass and wildflowers blooming everywhere.

Taylor had told me about these stones but it was still amazing to see.  For a city that didn't have sewers for the water and waste to run off into, this was a great innovation.  The sidewalks are raised above street level and these stones are placed at the right distance so a wheeled cart can go through them and also people can walk across the stones without having to step into the dirty road (extra dirty with horse and other animal leftovers).  Genius!

Seeing the preserved pottery and even some of the petrified people was very sad and creepy.  This town was full of life and it was a good life for most people.  Sad to see a normal reaction of curling into the fetal position and know that that was an actual person's last moment.

It's really amazing how much is preserved.

Even a wooden wagon survived.

And sadly a child did not but the ash preserved his last moments.

This was kind of a neat room to see.  It was the public washrooms.  Water poured in from each of the rocks and went down the opening you can see in the back.

The amazing amount of details was the same as Rome.

And these streets are better preserved than the Appian Way but you can see how it would really have been a great road to use.  The interesting thing here is you can kind of see how they've graded the road so it slopes down toward the sidewalk on each side so that water and waste will run to the gutters.

Taylor wanted to reenact this statue they've found.

The wagon ruts next to the stones was neat to see.

We wandered through Pompei until we got to these unexcavated hills on the outskirts.

Gorgeous!

Must have been something back in the day.  It sure is now.  This is a view of the modern town of Pompei.

Pompei had it's own ampitheater as well as army barracks and training facilities.

This is an ancient stone bed found in one of the more interesting buildings in town.  The walls have painted frescoes of shall we say menu options for the services provided inside on these beds.  Pompei was a port town and apparently this was a necessary, thriving business.

And I just had to take one picture of this because it was the bane of my trip.  Honestly, there bathrooms were so few and far between that when I finally found one it was for sure time to go.  And 99% of the time this is what I found.  Seriously?  Why is there not a toilet seat?  I've been out walking in the heat all day and I can't even sit on a seat?  And of course no toilet paper but that was expected and I was prepared.  But no seat!!!

Last Day, Baths of Caracalla and Biking the Appian Way

Our last day in Rome dawned and truthfully I felt like we'd seen everything I wanted to see and I was kind of ready for a rest.  Taylor was good though and pushed me to see just a little bit more and boy am I glad we did.  Walking these cobblestone streets was such a treat each and every day.

The people in Rome were wonderful.  It's completely foreign how they all just make things work here.  The roads are so narrow and there's no sidewalks, but people just more over and motorcycles and cars kind of just take turns and let people in.  They squeeze in next to each other, but most people weren't pushy or rude and it was kind of refreshing.

Our Segway guide told us about another church we'd missed (but come on, with 900 churches in the city we barely scraped the surface by hitting 40 or so).  This one was a gem.  Apparently the architect wanted to build a dome onto this church (as so many other churches had in Rome) but the city wouldn't allow it for some reason or other.  So he got an artist to paint a 3D picture that would make it look like there was a dome.  This is a flat room.  Truly.  But it looks like a large dome continues up and up and is open to heaven.  It was really neat.

I mean see?  Look at that.  That first window is real with the sunlight coming in, but the rest is all painted on.  Flat right above the window.

Even this separate dome is not really a dome, just a black painted dome on a flat ceiling.

See?  We can drive and walk here and everyone's just fine.

Taylor wanted to walk out onto the Circus Maximus just adjacent to the original palace on Palatine hill.  This was the main circus used because it's right next to the palace.  Nothing left except the imprint of land where it was dug out in the middle in an oval shaped track with curved hills on the sides for the stands.

And I found one more thing that sounded interesting and turned out to be just mind boggling.  The Baths at Caracalla.  This was one of the large baths the romans used.  And when I say baths, it was for bathing and swimming and was HUGE.  Seriously like the size of a modern day high school with hot pools and cool pools, women's areas and mens.

They're still excavating here and finding all these detailed, intricate tiles.

I mean look at this huge building.  Just some of it left, but by the size of the columns and the expanse of area you can just imagine how immense it was and of course how ornate because it was Roman.

Just some of the mosaic tiles they've found laying around.

And this was kind of neat.  It's an ancient game the Romans played.  They have historical records written about it.  And these indentions are where the little marble like balls would go.  It's dug into a marble step on the side of a pool so people could be swimming and lounging and playing the game.

After the Baths we rushed off to meet our last tour.  Taylor spotted this bike tour while he was booking the Segway one and decided we needed one last tour.  In truth we would have missed the Apian Way if not for being on a bike (since it's so far out of town) and I'm really glad we got to see it and the aqueducts outside town and also to be a part of the insane traffic.
We are not heroes.  We gladly accepted the e-assist bikes when they were offered.  Basically you push down on the peddle and the bike pushes twice as hard as you.  So you can kind of leisurely ride and it works twice as hard as you do.  So nice when trying to start on an uphill.

Here's our bike group as we start right above the Colosseum.

I may have been recklessly taking pictures while riding a bike but I guarantee you I had a smile plastered on my face and spent almost the whole time laughing at how insane our ride was.  Let's just say our guide took us on just 1 sidewalk and so getting into and out of town, during rush hour and evening traffic was a little intense.  Ok A LOT!

We first rode out to some of the ancient Christian catacombs.  You can't take pictures inside but basically they're burial tombs for ancient Christians.  Neat to see but a little chilly.

Taylor enjoying the cloud cover and cooler weather and the grass of course while we wait to tour the catacombs.

Then we were off on a bike ride through the countryside.  For being so close to Rome, it really felt like we were in the country.  The ruins here are amazing too.  I'm sure this used to be something but there's just so much that dwarfs it.

And then we found our way to the Appian Way- the original Roman road that so many in history traveled on.  Seriously.  This is the original.  And truthfully it was fairly hard to ride on.  Bumpy, uneven cobblestone so oftentimes we rode on the dirt trail beside it (that's not historical).

Back in the day (like 2000 years ago) these stones were perfectly fit and flat so that horses and wagons and armies could travel on it well.  Now it's neat to see some of the wagon tracks even though the earth has shifted and rocks have eroded and the roads not quite the same.

After a good long ride, we passed this in the distance.  I of course had to stop and take a picture because it's the ancient, still functioning aqueducts.  Amazing!

Impressive from afar and also up close.  All those arches.  Taylor spent a lot of time marveling that 2000 years ago they could figure out how to build just the right height arches to fit the ups and downs of the hills so that the water wouldn't pool up but continue to flow steadily downhill to Rome.  Truly a marvel.

And still standing 2000 years later!

I also had to stop because I've never seen Cala Lilies growing in the wild.  They're my favorite flower (and wedding flower) and it was a special treat to see them occupying a cute little island of their own out in the wild countryside so close to Rome.

Smaller arches as the aqueducts get closer to Rome.  And covered now since they're being used for current water needs in Rome.

Our guide had a lot to say and stopped us frequently to explain things.

Which unfortunately made us very late getting back.  Like 2 full hours late.  So we ended up coming home in the dark around 10pm, and battling a bit of traffic.  I'm glad we all came away uninjured, but there were some very crazy tense moments while we rode right next to cars that were trying to squeeze their way ahead and didn't seem to care that there was a line of obvious bike tourist inches from them.

Seriously.  See that ahead?  It's a light that controls the one way traffic going into town through that medieval tunnel.  Honestly.  The cars come out, and they go in, and somehow we're supposed to keep up with them as they go speeding ahead and squeeze through.  E-assist was very helpful.  But we made it back in one piece and I'm glad we both got to experience the craziness of bike riding in Rome and the beauty of the countryside as well as the grandeur of the Appian Way and the aqueducts.