Today we fulfilled our main purpose for visiting Naples and that was to visit Pompeii.
The hot ash from Mount Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 AD suffocated the Roman city of Pompeii, leaving it in a hardened cast of ash. This made Pompeii interesting because unlike the other ruins we had seen there was an entire city of them and the ruins along with the people were fairly well preserved. I had expected to see more casts of the inhabitants, that Pompeii is known for, but the only few they had were in glass cases.
Pompeii
Cast of a Roman
Something I didn’t expect was there to be all these dogs that live in the ruins. They were all over the place and surprisingly calm and friendly. Later I saw a sign that one could adopt a dog if they wanted. I also learned that the Romans who lived in Pompeii would have been familiar with dogs. One of the first “beware of dog” (Cave Canem) signs can be found in a mosaic on the floor of the entrance to the House of the Tragic Poet.
Steph making friends as always
After Pompeii we returned to Naples and went to the National Archeological Museum. This museum was fascinating because it contained many of the artifacts from Pompeii so it continued the theme of the day.
The most interesting part of the museum was the paintings found at Pompeii. I think this was the first time I had seen a collection of Ancient Roman paintings. When I typically think of Roman art I think of sculptures. They were more colorful and carried more emotion than I had expected, considering Roman sculpture is usually so stagnate. Interesting enough too they were all painted on stone, which is probably why they are more rare because they are less transportable.
To conclude our time in Naples we went and had dinner at this pizzeria called Sorbillo’s (we couldn’t leave Naples without having pizza). According to the staff at our hostel Sorbillo’s was the best in Naples and the most famous. According to the sign at the restaurant it is the birthplace of pizza. The pizza I had was huge, to begin with, and delicious, probably the best I have ever had in Italy. After I had my pizza I was ready to leave Naples. My first impressions of the city unfortunately hadn’t changed. So having completed our list it was time to move onto Florence.
Great Pizza
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