Pompeii, what a day!

{click on the pics, to see the detail, well worth it)

Sorrento is so different, really beautiful in a rough way.This is a good place to spend a week.
I will be glad to get out of this place the Town Suites, tomorrow.. the Bathroom smells of cat wee.ugh
Oh, well, one mistake, and it was just for 2 nights...
Then 6 days with Mario and Elise.
We found a travel agent, called Carla, who is scottish, moved here 17 years ago, and she is finding us an apartment in Rome,so I trust her totally on that,, She is Janet Brown with a map! and recommended Elise and Mario as well when we told her we had booked in there
She organised a private tour of Pompeii for us today..
We packed Ham and Salad rolls, and headed off on the train.
Luigi(yes, really) met us at the station, about 10 steps from the entrance and took us in.
He iwas a Professor of Archaeology in Napoli, and has been privately taking people through Pompeii since he retired.
and he was so amazing, his knowledge was unbelievable, pointing out things that we would never have noticed, such as the cuts in the stone indicating sliding doors, which meant it was a shop, the width of the roads, and the gutters cut for the chariots in the street.
It is well worth seeing, truly incredible
Here is a city, that with in 6 hours was frozen under 60 feet of ash and pumice.
It was not touched for 1700 years and then excavation started.. but where the bodies were were just empty cavities, and they worked out to pour in plaster of paris to preserve them, but not until the spanish had crunched their way in to the base, and on finding bones, crushed them for fertiliser, so out of the 20,000 or 30,000 preserved here, there are less than 500 samples available.
Then of course, 2 centuries of pillaging and plundering the marbles, the mosaics, the pottery, brass, lead piping etc, for houses being built in Naples, there is a lot missing.. a lot of it is in Naples in the Museum, and a lot in bathrooms around Campalia!
But, it is pretty awesome.
60 million tonnes of Ash taken away in the excavation, and used to build roads around the place.
Yes, Luigi was a man well worth spending money on.
Then we found a place near the gladiator arena, and had lunch near some cyprus trees, and finally home at dark.
Cooked dinner in the room, Pasta Pomadora, with bruschetta, suing the last of the tomatoes, and cheese etc, plus a huge Salad.


A view from Pompeii over to the new city behind
Apart from Hannahs Rabbit ears on Jacob, this was a good pic

the 3 stones mean a 2 way street.. the rivets are for the chariots wheels, the oxen passed either side of the stne. Trains guage today is exactly the same width as this apparantly

this is in the Greek Odeon , which sat 800 people, purely for music, singing and contests.. sort of "Pompeii Idol"The one next to it sat 2,000 and was for theatre productions.. there are troughs, they filled with water or drained depending on the acoustics

This one is for Sandra, a Mosaic of Some Geometrical something.. sorry Sandra, I wont even pretend to know, but its from a brain teaser, Jake says, on the internet

Take away food.

Not many cooked lunch in their homes and there were 35 of these places, with a heating system under the stones.. They cooked up soup, or stews, and served people.. So the Romans beat Maccas to the game, as Luigi told the ikids.They also on examination of remains have found arthritis, gout, gall stone etc, and Obseity as health problems

the ruins, with Vesuvius, the culprit in the back ground..Pompeii was on the coast, but the lava, has moved the coast back 2 kilometres

"LISTEN CAREFULLY".. Following Luigi around town

The brothels had picture menus, of what was available.. a legal business, paid taxes, a career path, I guess

Luigi leading the way. If you go to Pompeii, call Carla at McTravel, and organise to have him meet you in Pompeii

a cast of a man covering his face, in his last minutes

A dog, writhing,