Pompeii [Pompei] is a town belonging to the greater Napoli Metropolitan Area. There is not much there “except” for the ruins of the ancient city that names the area. Pompeii Scavi (ruins of Pompei) or Parco Archeologico di Pompei (Archaeological Park of Pompeii) is the name given to the ruins nowadays, which belongs to the Unesco Heritage Site Archaeological Areas of Pompei, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata.

The ancient city of Pompeii dates (dated?) back to an Oscan settlement in the 8th century BCE. The Etruscans arrived around 524 BCE, and the Greeks in 450 BCE. From the year 340 BCE, Pompeii was controlled by the Romans, first tacitly, then as a confederate, with its own administration and language. After it tried to rebel, it was forcefully conquered and made a colony in the first century BCE. The different civilisations expanded the city according to their own tastes.

The preservation of Pompeii makes it possible to appreciate the different styles in decoration, in mosaics, but chiefly on the frescoes in the houses. The first decoration style was called “incrustation” and it made the wall look like it was composed of actual marble bricks when it was in reality flat. The second style was the “architectural” one – areas of the wall were painted to look in relief, with or without decoration, such as a brick with a still life decoration on top, an open door, a window or a garden. The third style was the “ornamental” – there was a central element and all around it, linear separations and smaller motifs occupying whole walls and even rooms. The fourth and final style was called “Intricate” because it just fills the walls with ‘main’ motifs – the more the merrier, with as many colours and decoration as possible.

In the year 62 CE, there was an earthquake that heavily damaged the city. The citizens were not too worried, because quakes were common in the area. Reconstruction started. By the year 79 CE, the city had thousands of inhabitants. In October, Il Vesuvio, the volcano known as Mount Vesuvius, erupted. The eruption happened in the early afternoon, which caused most of the population to flee during the first hours. The ones that stayed behind were killed instantly when a cloud of volcanic gas with a temperature higher than 300 ºC collapsed onto the city. By the end of the eruption, Pompeii had been buried by 20 m of volcanic ash, whose weight caused most roofs to collapse.

Romans never came back to Pompeii, though after the eruption some valuables were salvaged, some excavations were made and building materials were taken. Subsequent eruptions covered the city completely, until the first walls were excavated in 1693. When Herculaneum was discovered in 1738 while building the Royal palace for the King of Naples (later Spain’s Charles III), the king was greatly interested and he sponsored excavations, which continue even today. The archaeological importance of Pompeii resides on the fact that this was not a fancy town, but an everyday one, which can teach us a lot about how Romans really lived.

Nowadays, about two thirds of the city have been uncovered and most areas that are not being actively worked on can be visited. Scientists and experts say that the primary goal at the moment is conservation rather than uncovering the rest of the site. Pompeii was not destroyed by lava, it was only covered in pumice and ash – lava would have disintegrated the whole city. As it became buried, time stopped. Unfortunately, as soon as anything is unearthed, the clock starts again. Furthermore, there are problems with conservation, bad restoration techniques, vandalism, theft and overtourism.

Another thing that makes Pompeii special was that “remains” of the victims were found – skeletons encased in a “hollow” where the body decomposed. Giuseppe Fiorelli came up with the idea of making casts out of those moulds in 1863 – though many of these casts were destroyed or damaged during WWII bombings. Some of them, or their copies are displayed through the site. I personally find it a bit morbid, but they are useful for archaeologists, apparently. It is calculated that around a thousand people perished in the eruption, but 90% of the population survived.

I woke up early to take the train to Pompeii – the modern town next to the ruins has taken the name of the ancient city. While most people take the train at Napoli Garibaldi (the easiest train station to reach on public transport), I was coming on foot. The terminus, Napoli Porta Nolana, was just three minutes further and the ticket price was the same, so I went there to hopefully be able to sit. I was successful and I rode the Circumvesuviana Line 1 8:09 train to Sorrento, which reached the station Pompei Scavi-Villa dei Misteri a bit after 8:30. After a couple of minutes, I was in line to get into Pompeii Scavi. As I had an entry ticket booked (and printed), once gates were open at 9:00 I was inside the archaeological park in a couple of minutes (my first picture is timestamped at 9:04).

I spent in Pompeii from 9:00 to 15:30, most of it walking, though I made a stop around noon for a snack, and I also had multiple breaks to apply sun lotion. The strada (streets) have little shade, and the few trees are planted on recreated orchards and gardens, and you can not sit under them. Also, there is a system of rotation on houses – not all of them are open, and none are open all the time. A few are the “house of the day”, which in my case (Wednesday) was the Terme del Foro (Forum Baths). There are also a lot of fountains throughout the site, and the water is drinkable.

A typical Roman house – where most people lived – were called insulae. They were “apartment blocks” with up to seven floors. The ground floor usually had a shop, and the owners lived right above, with windows and balconies. The higher the floor, the worse the apartment was – smaller and with fewer to no windows.

Rich people, in contrast, lived in a type of house called domus (villa for extremely wealthy individuals). A domus was a single-storey house built around an wide area, the atrium which had an opening in the celling with a small pool underneath to gather rainwater. This was the most important place of the house and it hosted a place to worship the ancestors or the household gods. Most of the rooms in the house led to the central atrium – the bedrooms (cubicula), dining room (triclinium), the study (tablinum) and the kitchen (culina). At the rear of the house there was an orchard or garden (hortus) and at the front, the shops (tabernae ). The domus was accessed through the fauces, a small decorated corridor. Bigger houses had a second building with a sort of patio (peristylum) similar to a cloister, with columns, plants, and a pond in the middle (piscina). At the very end there was a resting area (exedra).

The walls were decorated with frescoes, and the floors with mosaics. In Pompeii, both are damaged in most houses due to the earthquakes and the weight of volcanic ash and pumice, but they are still the best examples we have of Roman domestic frescoes. A lot of them have been removed and are in the Naples Archaeological Museum – only the most recently-unearthed ones are still at their original place. It is an interesting debate though – should they have been removed? If they had not, they might have got destroyed by decay and insufficient protection. But now they hang in the museum, devoid of all context, and it is weird.

A problem with Pompeii is the sheer amount of people that visit it – another paradox: maybe fewer visitors should be allowed, but it is visitor revenue is what keeps the place working and pays for conservation, research and further excavations. The best was the first 30 to 40 minutes, when I even had the Santuario di Apollo and the Casa dei Mosaici Geometrici all for myself.

All in all, the city is awe-inspiring. It’s not only that it has a huge architectural and archaeological value. It also shows the will of humanity to learn and discover, and at the same time, how small we are in comparison to nature – some of the originally-flat mosaics are now wavy due to the volcanic earthquakes, and the mosaics are cracked.

The streets are wide and the pavements are raised. There are raised crossings that would have slowed down the chariots and allowed people to cross without getting wet when it rained, or hm… when people… dumped… stuff there. Today, aside from tourists, there are lizards – absolutely indifferent to tourists – and cats – absolutely adored by tourists.

Some highlights of the visit included:

– Casa di Romolo e Remo or House of Romulus & Remus; Santuario di Apollo or Temple of Apollo; Basilica (building where politics were discussed); Foro or Forum. Some sights even have Il Vesuvio looming about.

– Casa del Menandro or House of Menander, with an almost completed atrium and peristylum, with great frescoes in situ.

– Casa dell’Orso Ferito or House of the Wounded Bear, with incredible mosaics (closed, unfortunately)

– Casa del Fauno or House of the Faun, one of the most famous houses, and original home to a mosaic depicting Alexander the Great in battle.

– Casa delle Nozze d’Argento or House of the Silver Wedding, with fantastic frescoes, and tiny details, extremely detailed.

– Casa dei Dioscuri or House of Castor & Pollux, in which the columns still keep some of the painting.

I visited around 75 buildings, and entered as many as I could. Towards 15:00, I again had a few buildings for myself, or with fewer people, and I wish I had had the energy to continue on. Unfortunately, the inner restaurant was super-full whenever I checked – which I did repeatedly between 12:00 and 15:00. However, by 14:00 I knew that I was overdoing it, so I started my retreat. I still had to see the Antiquarium or Pompeii Museum.

After I left the site, I stopped for a very late lunch (or a very early dinner) at a restaurant just outside the ruins. One of the waiters did not want to give me a table – or actually acknowledge me at all, I think this is the first time that I have actually felt the whole “solo travellers not welcome” echo, However, another one sat me, and I ordered the famous pizza Margherita, which is the big pizza in the Naples area. Not the Napoletana one, go figure.

I took the train back, and I was in Naples with time to do something else. I had eaten and I was feeling better, but I thought that I had overdone it, and was worried about crashing the following day if I was not careful. Thus, I took a trip to another supermarket and went back to the hotel for a shower.

For the sake of completion, here is a relation of all the spots I visited in Parco Archeologico di Pompei or Archaeological Park of Pompeii:
Casa di Romolo e Remo or House of Romulus & Remus
Santuario di Venere or Temple of Venus
Casa di Trittolemo or House of Tryptolemus
Basilica (building where politics were discussed)
Santuario di Apollo or Temple of Apollo
Comitium ed Edifici Municipali or Hall of the Elections and Municipal buildings
Foro or Forum
Casa dei Mosaici Geometrici or House of the Geometric Mosaics
Palestra Degli Iuvenes or Gymnasium of the Iuvenes
Casa dei Cinghiale or House of Vesbinus
Terme Repubblicane or Republican Baths
Foro Triangolare or Triangular Forum
Santuario di Atena ed Eracle or Temple of Athena and Heracles (Greek Doric Temple)
Teatro Grande or Large Theatre
Quadriportico dei teatri / Caserma dei Gladiator or Quadriporticus of the theatre / Gladiator Barracks
Ingesso al Teatro Piccolo od Odeon or Entrance to Little Theatre or Odeon
Domus Cornelia or House of Cornelius Rufus
Tempio di Asclepio or Temple of Aesculapius
Casa degli Epidii or Casa de Marco Epidio Rufo or House of Epidio Rufo
Casa del Citarista or House of the Citharist
Casa de Casca Longus or House of Casca Longus
Fullonica di Stephanus or Fullery of Stephanus
Casa del Larario di Achille or House of the Lararium of Achilles
Casa del Criptoportico or House of Cryptoporticus
Casa di Paquius Proculus or House of Cuspius Pansa
Casa di Fabius Amandio or House of Fabius Amandus
Casa del Sacerdos Amandus or House of the Priest Amandus
Casa dei Casti Amanti or House of the Chaste Lovers
Casa e Thermopolium di Vetutius Placidus or House and Thermopolium of Vetutius Placidus
Casa di Giulio Polibio or House of Julius Polybius
Casa del Frutteto or House of the Orchard
Casa di Trebio Valente or House of Trebius Valens
Taberna di Sotericus or Tavern of Sotericus
Casa di Octavius Quartio or House of Octavius Quartio
Casa della Venere in conchiglia or House of Venus in the Shell
Anfiteatro or Amphitheatre
Palestra grande (Exhibition: “Arte e Sensualità nelle case di Pompei” Art / Sensuality in the Houses of Pompeii)
Pradeia di Guiulia Felice or Farms of Julia Felix
Casa del Triclinio all’aperto or House of Summer Triclinium
Casa del Larario Fiorito or House of the Floral Lararium
Osteria del Gladiatore or Inn of the Gladiators
Porta Nocera (gate)
Necropoli di Porta Nocera or Necropolis of Nocera Gate
Casa del Menandro or House of Menander
Casa dell’Efebo or House of the Ephebus
Casa del Criptoportico or House of Cryptoporticus (again)
Casa dei Ceii or House of Fabia and Tyrannus
Casa di Sirico or House of Siricus
Casa di Marte e Venere or House of Mars and Venus
Casa dell’Orso Ferito or House of the Wounded Bear
Casa dei Cornelii or House of the Cornelii
Terme Stabiane or Stabian Baths
Lupanare or Brothel
Arco di Nerone or Arch of Nero
Portico Della Concordia Augusta (Edificio di Eumachia) or Portico of Concordia Augusta (Building of Eumachia)
Tempio del Genio di Augusto or Temple of the Genius of Augustus
Arco di Caligola or Arch of Caligula
Terme del Foro or Forum Baths (this was the “house of the day”).
Casa del Fauno or House of the Faun
Casa della Caccia Antica or House of the Ancient Hunt
Casa di Arianna or House of Arianna
Casa della Fontana Grande or House of the Large Fountain
Casa della Fontana Piccola or House of the Small Fountain
Casa dei Vettii or House of the Vettii
Casa delle Nozze d’Argento or House of the Silver Wedding
Thermopolium (food shop)
Casa di Paquius Proculus or House of Cuspius Pansa.
Porta Ercolano (gate)
Necropoli di Porta Ercolano or Necropolis of the Ercolano Gate
Casa del Poeta Tragico or House of the Tragic Poet
Casa dell’Ancora or House of the Anchor
Casa di C.N. Caetroni Eutychi or House of C.N. Caetroni Eutychi
Torre di Mercurio XI or Tower of Mercury XI
Casa dei Dioscuri or House of Castor & Pollux
Tempio di Giove or Temple of Jupiter
Macellum (food market)
Antiquarium (museum)