Italy Day 5: Church, Mt. Vesuvius & Herculaneum

We found a local Italian church and made our way through super narrow alleys and crazy roads to make it to the meeting in time.  Luckily we are pro drivers in narrow craziness with all our practice in Korea.  There were some missionaries there that had translation devices, and they translated the meeting for us into English.  We didn't have enough devices for everyone, so we took turns every other talk.  We left after the first meeting and made our way to Mt. Vesuvius. 

I was really looking forward to this day and our adventure up Mt.Vesuvius.  I enjoyed hiking the volcano in Bali, and was excited to hike Vesuvius with my whole family.  We brought Monster's hiking backpack and loaded him on Kevin's back.  We started by driving as close to the hike as we possibly could go, we found a parking area, which provided a shuttle to get even closer to the base of the volcano.  With as many kids as we had, we wanted to cut out as much walking as possible.

We started the hike about half way up the volcano.  There were the usually side street salesmen trying to convince our kids to buy small model volcanos and rocks and other things.  We steered the kids away and started our ascend up.  

The hike at the beginning was a lot of loose dirt and small rocks.  Little A kept dragging her feet and kicking up dirt.  The cloud cover was extremely low, we kept talking about how we were walking through the clouds.  To keep Monster and Little A preoccupied we took turns making up stories about how all the clouds and fog came to cover us.  Little A had unicorns and horses as the main characters in her stories.

The weather called for rain, but we were super lucky that we never got rained on.  We did have mist from the dense fog, but luckily the rain never came down.  The paths got super slick the higher we got and the fog kept getting thicker too. Monster was beginning to really start getting irritated and he was crazy bad for about 5 minutes, and then he crashed.  He slept the rest of the way up and down.

When we made it to the top, the kids are a little disappointed because the clouds were so thick we couldn't even see inside the volcano, but Heavenly Father smiled on us, because after a few minutes the clouds parted just enough to see inside the volcano and to see a little of the city below.

We stayed at the top and explored a little.  We went all the way to the end of the path and didn't find anything except a little shop, so we enjoyed the view one last time and started our descend down.

It took us a little over two hours to complete our Mt. Vesuvius hike, and all the kids did really great, it helps so much to have friends to distract them and to keep them going.  I was really disappointed we were not able to get a really good view from the top of the volcano, but I am so glad we were able to hike it.  It was crazy to see where the volcano originally was before it blew and destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum.  We were showed the line where the original volcano was, and over half the top was blown away when it erupted.  We had just enough time to hurry to Herculaneum to catch it before they closed, so we hurried to the cars and made our way to Herculaneum.

As we walked down the Cardo III Inferiore, it was neat to see the same raised sidewalk as we saw in Pompeii.  The streets were were much more narrower though and would only have allowed one house and carriage to be on the road at a time.  It seemed that the sidewalks were significantly higher here.

The House of the Beautiful Courtyard was my favourite house in Herculaneum.  This house still had not only the stairs still intact and a second floor, but it had the most amazing painting on the the wall and details could be seen.  It is suspected that the house was transferred from a private residence into a school.  I was in awe and could not believe that this house still stands after 2000 years.

House of the Black Hall was a really neat house with second stories and awesome columns.  There was a large garden in the middle and a pretty neat wall. The house was situated so the garden could be seen from the rooms.  It wasn't in very good shape inside, but everything outside was pretty amazing.

As were were waking down the road we walked down a shop area where the streets were lined with shops.  They were small square rooms all in a line, it was fun imagining each small shop filled with merchandise that the Romans would have wanted to purchase.

The House of Deers was a rather impressive house.  The visual colors on the outside of the house was so neat to see, since it has been around since before 79 AD.  There were some neat paintings on the wall and many rooms inside.  The room was super impressive along with the garden, which is where the house gets its name.  The garden had states of deers being attacked by dogs, and a few other statues.

The House of Relief of Telephus was the next stop, and is the second largest house in Herculaneum. These columns held the second story rooms, not a roof.  It was neat seeing two story houses here because all the second floors in Pompeii were ruined.

There were a few thermopolium throughout Herculaneum, and they were so impressive to see.  These establishments were basically Roman fast food joints.  They would prepare and serve hot food for ht locals here.  The counter has sunken jars made into them which would hold the food.

We ended at the Barrel Arches where about 300 human remains were found.  We learned that this is where the sea came straight up into the city and these were port warehouses and boat storages. These people ran here trying to get across the ocean, a boat was also found in the area.  Unfortunately, they were killed by the high temperatures caused by the clouds and ash from the volcano.  The material from the eruption added a 400 meter strip of land.

We just barely got to see everything before they started to close everything and ask all visitors to leave.  We only spent about an hour here, but it is significantly smaller than Pompeii.  It's mostly smaller because it has not been able to be excavated anymore due to the city being completely hurried under apartments and residences.  We left and treated ourselves to gelato since everyone did a stellar job hiking the volcano and exploring Herculaneum.  I really liked how the houses were preserved way better then Pompeii, and how the second stories were still intact.  It was also humbling to see all the bodies in the boat storage area.  I'm so glad we got to see and hike the volcano that froze Pompeii and Herculaneum in time.  It was like nothing I have ever seen before.  And it was even more amazing to see those cities frozen in time by Vesuvius.

Italy Day 3: Pompeii

Pompeii was a must see for me for this trip.  I wanted to see the Roman city that was covered in ash from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, and for thousands of years was preserved in almost perfect condition due to the ash.  We decided that we were going to use the Rick Steve's app for our audio tour of Pompeii.  Arron Dahlin brought his bluetooth speaker and we set out following the maps on the phone and in the Rick Steve's Italy book I checked out from the library.  Pompeii was amazing because according to the weather app, we were supposed to get rain all day today.  The heavens shined down on us, because other then light sprinkling on our walk to the exit, we didn't get rained on at all. When we pulled up into the parking lot though, it began pouring! Yet, we looked and saw that it should be short lived (like back to the future part II) and it stopped! It was such a blessing to be able to enjoy Pompeii without getting drenched.  We were prepared though, all of us had rain jackets and umbrellas, totally prepared for a cold wet day.  

We started at the Porta Marina which we found out was where the sea was during the time of Pompeii around 600 BC. From where the sea was during the time of Pompeii and now is a good 3 mile difference.  That was a little mind blowing.  

As we entered the city, we walked the streets of Pompeii and learned all about the super cool crosswalks. Because of the sea and high tides, the roads were flooded some of the time, so they built the sidewalks and crosswalks high above the road.  We found these high stones in the middle of the road and learned that they were placed so the horse drawn carriages could still go over them without any problem, but people could cross the street without getting wet.  Since the city was horse powered, that meant there was horse poop everywhere, so another benefit to having foldable roads, is they would flood them to clean them. 

As we continued down the road, we got to our first tourist spot, The Forums of Pompeii. The Forums were Pompeii's religious, commercial, and political main centre, but it was also the most ruined part of Pompeii. 

Most of the buildings around the city centre were two story buildings which consisted of temples, shops, a city hall, commercial buildings and other important buildings.  

The Basilica is part of the city centre, and was our next stop.  During the time of Pompeii, the Basilica was the palace of justice.  There were some columns that were in the front of the Basilica that is said to have been in the process of rebuilding when Vesuveus blew.  The columns were made out of uniform bricks stacked around a cylindrical core.  The bricks would have been then coated with stucco made with marble dust to make it look like marble columns.  It really was super ingenious.

We walked through the Forum and walked into the Forum Granary.  This area had pots, pans, jugs and continuers behind a fence in a room.  There was also an entire wall that had paintings on it.  We had the impression that this area was like a market of some sort.  It almost had the appearance of a flea market.

So, Pompeii had six public baths, and we decided to check one of them out. The baths all had separate men and women sections.  There was a gymnasium when the Romans would work out, then they would relax in the baths.  The Baths of the Forum were pretty neat because so much detail is still on the walls.  It is mind blowing to think these buildings are over 2000 years old and perfectly preserved due to being buried in ash.  It's as if it was held in time by the ash. The first room in the baths had mini statues of men holding pillars, we learned this was where the lockers would have been.

After leaving the locker room, we came into the steam bath room, also known as the caladium.  This was pretty ingenious as the floor was heated from below, so the men could be barefoot.  The big tub was still sitting in the middle of the room, ready for a hot soak.  There was a fountain opposite the big tub, and this made the water fall on the heated floor and produced steam, hence the steam room.  The arched ceiling was awe inspiring with its detail and beauty.  This was another moment that I couldn't believe this was real.

Our next destination was the House of the Tragic Poet, but for some reason it was closed, so we walked around to the back of the house and went exploring in the yard.  The house was roped off, but we enjoyed exploring the yard walls and the alleyways.

We left the poet's sideboard and walked through the Aqueduct Arch and took a look into the ancient plumbing.  This arch was another ingenious invention.  The town had an aqueduct which carried water into the city, but water pressure was very low.  To solve the water pressure problem, the city had aqueduct arches built throughout the city which had huge water tanks hidden on top of them to hold the water, thus creating reliable water pressure.

We then walked into the largest house in Pompeii, the House of the Faun.  This gigantic house was the size of the entire block, I couldn't believe while walking through that it just kept going further and further back.  The house even had some amazing mosaic floors still totally intact.  The house had over 40 rooms, and a little bronze statue of a faun in the entry pool area.  Almost every house had this small wadding pool inside their entry way.  It was actually super weird to me.  I never did figure out why the houses had a small pool for an entry way.  Perhaps it was to walk through to clean your feet before entering the main house?  Maybe like our modern day floor mats?  I'm not sure, but it was a curiosity.  We just took our time exploring, but Monster got very bored and just sat in the middle of the street. The street where he sat was super cool because you can see the grooves from the chariots!  Those are real and legit, that was one of the coolest things I saw.

We took time to walk the chariot wheel grooved streets and leisurely look around on our walk to the Bakery and Mill.  We found another crosswalk and took time to get a family picture.

The Bakery and Mill was pretty neat.  There was a brick oven to bake the bread and foods, and there were giant mills to grind the wheat.  The wheat grinder was man or donkey powered as they walked in a circle around the mill to make it grind the wheat.  

The brothel was next on the list, we decided to skip this stop due to the line being too long and it was an additional fee, plus kids don't need too see an ancient whore house with mosaics of what happened inside the brothel.  Sadly though, this is the most popular place people want to go: polite pass. As we were waling and exploring this part of town we came to a neat house that had a beautiful shrine.  I don't remember what buildings this was in, I just know the paintings and the colors and the shrine was so beautiful.

We walked the beautiful Via Abbondanza street on the way to the Theatre. These roads had the deepest wheel grooves, and since it had been raining on and off, they were filled with rain water.  The little houses and shops along the street was fun to see. The shops were just these small squares, but the neat part was seeing grooves where actual sliding doors would have been.  It blows my mind how advanced this city was.

Before getting to the Theatre, we took a detour at the Temple of Isis.  This was surprising to find in a Roman city, since Isis is an Egyptian goddess.  We learned that slaves, freemen and women were the majority of patrons who worshipped here.  Isis originally was an Egyptian goddess, then the Greeks used her as their pantheon of deities and then she was used in the Roman period as a replacement to Venus.  It was neat to see some freedom and variety in Pompeii.

The most grandeur stop was next, the Theatre.  This was a super big open air theatre with seats that still had numbers on them.  The stage, which was originally wood of course burned and decayed away, but they are in the process of making a new one.

The Theatre actually holds real plays and concerts now.  I was so impressed by the way the voices were amplified, Kevin and Aaron stayed on the bottom and we all went to the very top and they just talked normal and we could still him them, that was super cool.

We left the Theatre and were initially going to just leave, but I really wanted to see the colosseum, which was on the completely end of Pompeii.  The city was closing in about an hour, so we had to book it to the colosseum, and luckily we did because as we walked into the colosseum, the gates closed behind us and they didn't let anyone else in.  The floor of the colosseum is a few feet of small pebbles, this was to absorb the blood during the gladiator fights.  The outside of the colosseum was super impressive too, it reminded me of a smaller scale of the Rome colosseum.  We only were allowed about 10 minutes to walk around before they kicked us out and told us we needed to make our way to the exit.

 As we were walking out we saw a large green statue and wanted to see him, so we made our way on the other side of the Basilica and walked through some residence houses until we made it to a field with our green man. We don't know anything about him but we all started telling our own story about the green warrior.  In the end we all figured he was facing the sea to protect them from any harm from the sea.  I felt Pompeii was such a neat experience.  Every corner we turned had me in awe as I contemplated the way the Romans lived and just had me bewildered at their advanced technology.  From the roads and the raised sidewalks, to the houses, the columns, the food courts and the shop doors.  Everything was so special to witness.  As horrific as Vesuvius erupting was, I am silently grateful it preserved such a rich part of history.  As we left Pompeii, I knew it solidified our desire to climb Mt. Vesuvius and see Herculeium.