Today, it’s not going to be a food post, but a post about my travels to Pompeii! I was seriously so excited when I found out we were going to Pompeii. It’s sort of a childhood inside joke K and I had since I had learned about Pompeii in elementary school, and I remember coming home telling her all about it. We had thought the name sounded funny and were amazed that people were buried alive and all. And since then, it was always a place I wanted to go see. Anyways, we were in Rome, so we decided to take a train to Naples, then connect another train that took us to the city of Pompeii. It was out of the way, and expensive, but I knew we had to do this. For those of you who don’t know much about Pompeii, it’s an ancient town near Naples in the Campania region. The town probably existed back in the 6th or 7th century, but was destroyed and buried from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. The town was then forgotten, until 1599, when they began to dig and discovered ancient walls. Pictured here is basically a road or street that horse carriages would go down along, with the houses on the sides. You could tell that the houses back then were already pretty structured!

This is where the city center of the town was. Probably where it was most busy and where they had temples and such. It’s basically “The Forum“. In the background, you can see Mt. Vesuvius, although the mountain used to be fuller and higher. If you took the right hand slope and connected it to the top, that was what the mountain used to look like, until it erupted. People were basically buried alive, and it’s amazing how the structures are still in tact today. You will see a case of plastered victims as they have been able to preserve them.

More temples and such. Some other cool parts were the fast food stands, where you would see pots and holes on tables, where apparently, people placed food on. You’ll even see a bakery oven! As well, they have an amphitheater which looks like the Colosseum! On the buildings, you will also see many fresco paintings, which was really cool since I learned about that in high school. Another interesting sight was the brothels they had! You would see these stone beds and pillows in these tiny houses… haha

If you’re planning to visit Pompeii, I would highly recommend you to bring a guide book, like the one I used by Rick Steves. Or you can also pay for a guided tour, but honestly, I was reading the guide book to my family, and we were learning the exact same things I overheard the tour guide speak about. Otherwise, if you just venture into the ruins on your own, you will have no idea what you’re looking at, and it won’t be as interesting. Overall, I highly recommend taking this one day trip here! You can get off at Pompeii Scavi by the train which departs from Naples. Warning though, is that the Naples station is not really luxurious. People are smoking inside and it’s known for pickpocketing, so be careful of that. If you have more time, you can also take a look at modern Pompeii, as well as train back to Naples and explore that city. I wish we did, since they have amazing pizza! Too bad we had to catch our train back to Rome. A must see in Italy though! I personally think this was much more interesting than the Roman Forums in Rome.