Med Cruise - October 2021
Pompeii
We've visited Naples a few times before but had never been to Pompeii so this was a good opportunity to do so. We booked a ships tour, which we normally never do as they are so expensive, but this was quite cheap ($35?) as it was really just transport to Pompeii. You were on your own then for a few hours to explore as you saw fit. We got an audio guide which helped a lot in understanding everything we saw.
Naples in the morning sunshine.
The 'bodies' are not stone encased. They are plaster casts. Ash many feet deep covered the corpses and over the centuries the bodies rotted away leaving a person shaped cavity. The archaeologists recognised this and drilled a hole into the cavity which they poured plaster into. Clever stuff eh?
These photos don't do justice to the scale of the place. for example it's a long walk from the main areas to this ampitheatre - around 15 minutes - and all of it is through cobbled streets with house walls on each side. You really can imagine life in a Roman city.
Culture is one thing but a malted milkshake has it's own pleasures as India discovered back on board.
Not a great photo, but those white things are seagulls. Loads of them followed the ship out to sea.