Pompeii

This post is going to be super long, because I really really liked Pompeii. Pompeii was a Roman city that was buried when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. It was lost for 1500 years after this happened until it was rediscovered in the 1599. The concept of this city being over 2000 years old boggles the mind. (At least it boggles my mind!) It is so well preserved, and it's insane to look at everything and think back to the people and culture of that time. The National Archaeological Museum of Naples contains a lot of the artifacts from Pompeii, and we went there also. I particularly like the sculptures there, most of which seemed to be Roman copies of classic Greek sculptures. We saw the sculpture of the Farnese Bull, which is the largest single sculpture ever recovered from antiquity. They had a collection of medical instruments that were recovered, and it was really insane to see them. Some of them looked exactly like modern surgical instruments. At least if you cleaned off the rust. ;-) They also had musical instruments, pots, mosaics, coins, a lot of pottery, and believe it or not glassware.

This first picture is taken of the main city square of Pompeii, and you can just make out Mt. Vesuvius in the background amidst the clouds. (Ominous, huh?) The pillars are from the Temple of Jupiter.
 

These pillar bases still have some of their marble attached.

There is a huge amount of pottery and other artifacts that still reside at Pompeii. After the eruption, many people died and were buried in volcanic debris. Over time, the organic material from the bodies decomposed leaving hollow places. When such a hollow place was found during excavation, they would fill it with plaster and create a plaster cast of the opening. Some of these casts are displayed in various locations in Pompeii, one is in the picture below. A few of them were a bit disturbing. Jonathan had a really good point though. It's not worth getting caught up in the fact that these people died, because they would have died by now anyway... what's amazing about Pompeii is the preservation that occured because of the eruption.
  

They recently finished restoration work on some of the bath houses in Pompeii. (There were a total of six, each with a men's and women's section. I am SO glad they had been reopened by the time we went, because they were amazing. You were able to see the frescos on the walls and intricate tilework on the flooring. The Roman baths were a hot spot for business and political interactions. (No pun intended.)

I wish the frescos on the walls were easier to see in the picture, you can kind of make them out...

 

I thought this was really cool, it was a bakery. It looks just like a modern brick pizza oven. The curved upright stone to the right of an oven is a flour grinder. The flour went in the top, and as the stone was turned (by animals or slaves) the flour dropped out the bottom.

This is the ancient fast food joint. ;-) The holes in the counter acted like a thermos into which pots of food were placed.


The Italians love dogs. Both anciently and modernly apparently. We saw quite a few stray dogs, particularly in Naples. They are well fed, loved by all, happy to lounge on the street strays! And apparently smart too. Funny story: I talk about driving in Italy in another post, but to recap there aren’t really official traffic rules. So as a pedestrian, if you wanted to cross a street it consisted of “start moving when there is a gap in traffic and pray.” The locals there have a much better grasp than we did of what constituted an appropriate gap, so we would often tag along behind them and go when they did! (An effective technique.) We were crossing a SIX lane road once, and there was a stray dog crossing with us. I kid you not. He went to the marked crosswalk (no light, but still at least marked), waited for a gap, crossed halfway across the street, waited in the median, and crossed the rest of the street when there was a second gap. It was amazing. We followed him just like we did all the other locals.

Without Benjamin seeing (we don’t want to support the feed-the-dog habit he and Lady already have) we fed some pizza to a stray that lived at Pompeii. They have a whole organized effort (with giant signs explaining this effort) in Pompeii to support and feed the strays that live at the site. He was a surprisingly well behaved stray. We initially told him no, and he immediately walked a little bit away to lay down. After we gave him the pizza I thought he would follow us all day, but he meandered for a short while and then moved on. Like I said, well fed. We were not going to be his only chance for dinner. The picture below is from the House of the Tragic Poet. This famous "Beware of Dog" or "Cave Canem" mosaic is in the entryway.

Another household with some amazingly preserved frescos on the walls.

Easier to see them in this picture I think:

I don't know how those pillars are standing after 2,000 years.

I can't remember which house this courtyard was in either, but again, you can see the preservation of the tilework and frescos.

This is the Temple of Isis, serving Pompeii's Egyptian community. A shrine here held holy water from the Nile.

This is the larger of two theaters in Pompeii:

These next two pictures were taken in the smaller theater next door.

Florence

By the River Arno:

 

The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, is particularly famous for its dome, which until modern times was the largest in existence, and an architectural marvel. To be honest... we didn't care a whole ton for the outside of the building, it was kind of pink... but we really liked the inside.

Positioned next to the cathedral is the Baptistery. These bronze doors on the East Side of the building (the originals are in a museum) took 27 years to complete and depict scenes from the Old Testament. Their perspective and depth were revolutionary for the time. Many of the figures are almost free standing, it was impressive.

The inside of the cathedral:

The inside of the dome:

You can actually climb to the top of the dome, and the view of Florence from the top is supposed to be spectacular. Frankly though, after two weeks of running all over Italy, no view was promise enough for us to cart Benjamin and stroller up that many stairs unnecessarily. Maybe that would have been different if we had started in Florence. ;-)

This is the Palazzo Vecchio, in front of which Michelangelo's David stood for hundreds of years. Currently there is a replica in the square, which you can just barely see in the bottom right of the picture.

We were able to see the origional statue in the Galleria dell Accademia. The museum was small, but it was worth going to just to see the David. The hallway leading to the David houses some unfinished statues by Michelangelo, they were also really amazing. They say the statues appear to be breaking free from the marble, and you can see what they mean by that description. I feel like I am using the word "amazing" a lot, but you really do just find yourself in awe as you look at some of these pieces.

This is the Fountain of Neptune in the Piazza del Signoria:

Additional statues in the Piazza del Signoria:

The Piazza del Signoria is very close to the Galleria degli Uffizi, which is one of the oldest and most famous art museums in the Western world. We were able to go there as well, but they also do not allow pictures inside.

This is the Basilica of Santa Croce, which is the burial site for many famous Florentines were buried, including Machiavelli, Michelangelo and Galileo. I have pictures of their funeral monuments... but it seems a little strange to post them.

In Florence we also went to the Museo Galileo, which houses scientific instruments through time. It was really interesting and somewhat different from the other museums we went to, which was also nice.

Rome (Part 1: The Colosseum and Roman Forum)

The Colosseum is way, way cool. We learned a lot about it during the guided tour we did.

This is our tour group walking out to look over the ground floor. (Or where the ground floor used to be, as it's collapsed now.) Our guide talked to us about how the arena it was set up like a theater stage for performances in a lot of ways. There were elevators that could rise and lower to take participants, animals, props, etc. up into the arena from below. There was an elaborate network beneath the floor to support that process.

This view from above has a better view of the floor, and shows the partially collapsed upper levels of the arena.

It was SO cold on this day. I don't know why, but we were freezing.

Benjamin running around after we let him out of his stroller:

I can't remember which arch this is... anticlimatic, huh? It's between The Colosseum and the Roman Forum. ;-)

The Roman Forum, the ruin site of ancient government buildings in Rome:

This picture shows our poncho technique for Benjamin's stroller in the rain, it was hard to keep him under an umbrella otherwise.

Still in the Roman Forum:

The Arch of Titus:

You may (or may not) have noticed there are WAY more pictures of Jonathan and I together in Rome than we normally take on vacation. This is completely thanks to Liz, who kept our camera when she was with us and took them all! It's fine to trade off who's taking the picture and who's in it, that's what we normally do, but it's also fun to have some with both of us. :-) So thank you Liz!