Pompeii: a town comes to an end…and so does 3 weeks in Europe for me

Mt. Etna - Catania

The flight from Catania is only 55 min…hardly worth the effort of going through security. And let’s talk security here…You can lock your bag that you are going to check, check it and head to security. Weird. I forgot I had purchased a paperweight (something US would NOT let through security because they see it as a weapon (trust me – I got caught taking a large agate through security and they would not let me through. I had to run back to my bag and put it in the checked one before it went through security. But here they made me open my carryon bag, pull it out of my sock…and then laughed and gave it back to me. So, before heading home from Rome I’ll put it into my suitcase and check it. LOL Don’t want to through out my fish paperweight.   From airport I took the alibus to the train station where I found out my ticket I purchased on-line doesn’t work for Pompeii (there went $26). Cost for ticket, round trip here, 4,80 euros. LOL What a joke. Purchase train tickets HERE, not on internet. LOL

POMPEII

Pompeii…what’s to say about Pompeii – it’s at the top of my list of pretty cool things I did on my trip. So glad I was able to fit it in today. I spent about 4 hours there and could have spent more time, but saw everything I really wanted to see. It’s a very large excavation site and they are still working on it currently. There are some really great houses and buildings they have been able to excavate really well, and some that with the earthquake were only one story and not roofs. It’s amazing to walk around there …if that’s what you can call it. I’d say stumble is more like it. The “streets” are made of rock and they are all uneven and slanted from the center to the edges so that if it rained the water would go to the edges…and then for when it really rained they had these three big rocks at places that stood taller than the regular road so that you could bet across if it was a little stream or river. There’s no way I can really explain it so here are a few more pictures I took today:

Mt Vesuvius about to blow again?  NOT!

Brothel Bed - used to have straw mattress on it.  Pictures on wall showed "positions" offered to clients.  Downstair was for the poor men and upstairs rooms were bigger and for the rich men of the town.
Town Drinking Facuet.  They all seemed to have water coming out of their faces.

They may not have had polished granite but they did a nice job with what they had.  I was told the red and green where shipped in and so only the rich could afford to have that in their homes.  Areas like this were the town eateries, like What they call "Cef Express" here in Europe.  Sandwiches and such for the weary traveler...like me.

Even Animals where stopped "dead" in their tracks.

Dad always ended his slide shows with the "pipe" - so it just seemed fitting to end this story with the most important feature...If you are a germaphobic you won't make it very long in Europe - but I had a GREAT time!

April 23, 2010 Kyla here - shutting the lid on my European trip...till next time...