Everybody loves a good disaster story. Case in point: Titanic. Call it morbid, but there is something about all hell breaking loose that really gets the public going. But a ship sinking beneath the waves is lapped compared to an entire city sinking beneath the onslaught of a volcano.
Fun fact: it took about a full 24 hours for Mt. Vesuvius to bury Pompeii. Funner fact: The eruption on August 24, 79 AD, was, ironically, one day after Vulcanalia, the festival to the fire gods. Think of what could have happened if somebody didn’t skimp on that last goat sacrifice…
The eruption, one in a long line of Vesuvian hissy-fits, whacked out 1.5 tons of pumice, ash, and lava per second, burying Pompeii under 20 ft. of material and pushing out the coastline into the Bay of Naples by two miles. The deathtoll stands at around 16,000 for the countryside, 2,000 in Pompeii, and the destruction was so overwhelmingly complete that the entire city was forgotten until its accidental discovery in 1748.
Today, the ruins of Pompeii is a thirty minute ride from downtown Naples. We all know the impressive ruins of the Forum and Colosseum, but Pompeii represents a time warp back to the everyday life of the Roman Empire. The town was actually quite prosperous, and included temples, fortifications, baths, theaters, bakeries, bordellos, a forum and an amphitheater, plus houses of every type, from villas with fabulous paintings and mosaics to lowly hovels. There is even graffiti, some of which gets pretty graphic.
The Roman Era town covered a whopping 109 acres, so doing the entire site, while ambitious, may not be feasible if you are even slightly pressed for time. Tours and routes through the best-preserved parts of the city criss-cross Pompeii, and a typical outing takes about 3 hours, longer if you are more adventurous. The most popular sites are the Villa of the Mysteries, famous for its frescos; the Lupanare, a fancy word for brothel; the forum and amphitheater, and the House of the Faun, so named for the fantastical creature forever playing in the pool. More eery are the casts; remember the whole “disaster” part of this article. Formed by the voids left by people entombed in the volcanic ash at the second they died.
And just to really creep you out, over Pompeii, and Naples for that matter, rises Vesuvius. It’s still active, by the way…
For more info, go to italia.it or or contact Steele Luxury Travel to make your reservation! www.SteeleTravel.com