Youngs Around the World

The fast ferry delivered us from Amalfi to Naples in just over two hours. The ride was pleasant and the view from the sun deck spectacular. As we neared the Naples port, we could see the mischievous Mount Vesuvius looming in the background. Having spent as much of the day as possible in Atrani, we arrived in Naples in the early evening. Naples is the city responsible for introducing pizza to the world and Aaron was licking his cheeky chops long before our arrival. Before disembarking the ferry, he had already decided on Pizzeria Da Michele – Naples’ most famous pizza joint – as our dinner venue. While I am generally in charge of the family nutrition, Italy is pizza country and Naples in pizza town. We had to indulge. The hand-tossed thin crust pies were to die for, layered with double mozzarella and the freshest ingredients.

The next day was devoted to Pompeii and, despite the incessant drunken racket of the obnoxious twentysomethings that kept us up half the night, we woke early to beat the crowds and the sweltering heat. We were among the first inside and, with our audio guides and our very stylish hats, we began to explore.

Pompeii, a Roman city that had been in existence for centuries, began to flourish in the 2nd century BC. In AD 79, Mount Vesuvius erupted, covering Pompeii in several meters of toxic volcanic ash. The ancient city remained buried beneath the ash for centuries until traces of it were discovered and excavation began in the 1700s. As fate would have it, the cocoon of ash actually preserved the structures and many of their original frescoes and, after hundreds of years of excavation, most of the remnants have re-emerged.

What is shocking about the ruins of Pompeii is the sheer size of the city and its level of development. The stone streets are arranged in a grid system. The city has government buildings, temples, two theatres, a stadium, a market, bakery, public baths, public swimming pool and athletic field, storehouse and hundreds of individual houses, some with elaborate floor plans. Many of the buildings have beautiful painted frescoes, stone and marble columns and mosaic tile floors that remain quite well intact after almost two thousand years. The most affluent homes have garden courtyards, which were the style of the time, and the gardens have been replanted to look as they probably did before the eruption. Walking through the old stone streets, peering into the ruins of two thousand year old homes, you really get a sense of what life in Pompeii must have been like. You can easily imagine the streets full of activity: children playing, women cooking and sewing, men discussing business or politics on the lawn, young men competing at sport.

One of the most interesting buildings to walk through was the brothel. It had several tiny rooms, each with a stone bed where the prostitutes would service their clients. Only slaves and middle class citizens patronized the brothel. Wealthy clients received working women in their homes. Above the tiny brothel rooms, interesting frescoes depicting various erotic positions are visible. Etched into the brothel walls are names of some of the most beautiful prostitutes as well as client names and complaints about venereal disease.

The most fascinating things that we saw among the Pompeii ruins were the bodies. As the volcanic ash began to fall from the sky, many people suffocated and were buried in the meters of ash. When they died, their bodies became petrified in their final agonizing positions. When the bodies decayed, their petrified shapes remained. They were an eerie sight. There was even one body of a dog that had been chained inside its house, its contorted death pose petrified for eternity.

We’ve seen a lot of ruins on this trip, but Pompeii is unique in its level of preservation, the modernity of the city plan and buildings, and the fascinating tale of its destruction. Pompeii reminds us of how small we are in the scheme of our world and in relation to the passage of time and also how quickly we can disappear from this earth if it is the will of God. The thriving, bustling, affluent city disappeared beneath layers of ash for 1,500 years – an entire city gone in a matter of a day.

Touring the ruins was a hot, dusty, exhausting experience and also a rewarding one. We finished off the excursion with frozen lemon- and orange-ades, made from fresh-squeezed juice, and gigantic salads with the ripest, reddest tomatoes and the freshest buffalo mozzarella. We had spent about three hours in the ruins and, on the bus ride back to Naples, we sat in near silence. Pompeii left us with much to ponder.

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