The Cunningham Family: Pompeii :: Europe

While we were in Rome Jack was accidentally served a non-virgin pina colada. It was his first time trying a pina colada. The rest of our trip he kept ordering them in hopes they'd give him another real one. Hah!

The drive to Pompeii took us past Naples.

This sculpture was made in for the Athens Olympics.

It was so cool.

On the way to Pompeii I found some Toblerone for Wyatt at the rest stop. He's been wanting to try the candy but I haven't been able to find it in town. He'll be so happy!

These kiddos have made the trip so much fun!!!

Seeing books in a different language is just so cool & bizarre.

Look at these flowers!

Art from the museum in Pompeii.

Our tour guide Marcos was amazing. Hands down, our best tour guide on the whole trip.

Daedulus statue. I learned more about him and what he became famous for in Circe, which I read this summer along with The Song of Achilles, which I actually brought on this trip with me.

I loved seeing the Daedalus statue. He was a famous sculptor and the way the author of Circe wrote about him made him seem pretty amazing.

You may remember the story of his son Icarus:

"According to the story, Daedalus, a mythical inventor, created wings made of feathers and wax to escape from Crete where he and his son, Icarus, were held captive by . Icarus, however, ignored his father's warnings and flew too close to the sun. His wings melted and he fell into the sea where he met his end."

-Source

That is why Daedalus looks so sad in this sculpture.

The way that many of the walls and streets were made in different places (the colloseum, the Vatican, and in Pompeii) were mind boggling to me. It makes our roads in America seem so lazy and uninventive by comparison.

It's crazy to me that all of this was under ash. Bit by bit they removed the ash and discovered the city underneath it.

This is the forum, which was the center of life on Pompeii.

See those bits of white rock between the cobblestone streets? Those are the most brilliant thing I may have seen at Pompeii aside from the cross walks (which we'll see later in this post). These are bits of limestone that were laid only on the main road that lead from the city to the pier on the Mediterranean sea. At night, the moon would shine on those bits of limestone and light the way for people to find their way back to the docks.

Could I look any more like a tourist? Ha!

Seeing the bodies of people who perished in Pompeii was sobering. It is estimated that around 2,000 people died in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. As the scientists were digging up remains in Pompeii, they discovered that where bodies had been burned, there was a cavity left behind in the ash. To get a clearer idea of how people died, they poured plaster of Paris into the cavity. That mold is what you see when you look at sculpted bodies. What they actually found was simply skeletons as seen directly below:

This is what the plaster casts looked like:

I could photograph all the different types of rock and sculptures all day long. I love it.

Jack and I both agreed that Pompeii was our favorite tour. It was so much fun, so informative, and our tour guide was great!

Look at the view from this alley!

This was a public drinking fountain. It gathered water from the rain, then spouted it out of the woman's face. Over time, as the public drank from her mouth, it wore away the stone.

Okay, this next part of my Pompeii tour is at least PG 13 if not R rated.

(You've been warned!)

You have heard that prostitution is the oldest profession right? Well, while in Pompeii we got to see proof. Pompeii was destroyed by Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. Nearly 2,000 years ago. And here, in this perfectly preserved city, we got to see some evidence of that old profession.

All over the streets and buildings of Pompeii, there are penises. These point you in the direction of the nearest brothel or prostitute.

Here we see one carved into the stone of the road.

Here we see one pointing up (just under the sign) to the upstairs window of a two story house.

I couldn't get my photos to load in the order I wanted, so I am going to jump around a bit.

Another public fountain.

Pompeii was a port town, and as such, the people who visited there often didn't speak the language. So the brothel had pictures painted into the plaster, called a fresco, that showed the available positions.

(Look at your own risk)

Here is a brothel bed, made of stone. There would have been furs and blankets on top to make it more comfortable.

Another decorative (not for prostitutes) fresco:

Do you see that little spout sticking out of the wall of this building? That's a fallic symbol that told sailors and merchants from abroad that this was an establishment that held prosititutes in its midst.

Here is the public pool where families could take their children swimming.

And a tour guide is explaining the plaster process that archaeologists used to get these body molds.

Again, I'll never get over the rocks, the detail, the architecture.

If you ask Jack, the Pompeii tour was his favorite. It was over 100 degrees and we were all melting, but every bit was fascinating and our tour guide was amazing!

This is where people had their fireplaces, under the stairs, so that the heat could travel up to the second story.

You could tell the fancier, more wealthy families from those of lesser means based on the size of the house and the tile/rock work they had done in their home.

The first BBQ ha!

These were located in everyone's backyard as a way to gather rain water for personal use for that family.

This was the world's first known bakery.

And here you can see into one of the houses. They were built like what we would call townhouses, all connected, lining the stone streets.

This would have been the inside of someone's house at one point.

And! In addition to seeing the first bakery, we got to see the first fast food restaurant. It was on the main drag that ran down to the port, and they would put hot food in these hot plates and people would come up to the window and buy food to go.

They had fancy rock work as well!

This impressed me maybe more than it should have.

This is a crosswalk. They made it like this so that when it rained, the water could run down the street (which was built at a slant, toward the sea) and people could still safely cross without getting wet. They also made the large stepping stones the perfect distance apart to let a horse drawn carriage get over/through them. Just so smart!