Sorrento, Day 12 - Part One: Pompeii - 25th February 2016

Today Hugh and I took a trip to Pompeii. We had an easy breakfast at a small cafe, Bar Vittoria, near our hotel. We bought some croissants, a hot chocolate and an espresso to go (and all this for only €5.50!).

It was back on the Circumvesuviana for half an hour of ignoring blaringly loud music played by gypsies who asked you to pay if you wanted to disembark without any hearing loss. Luckily Hugh had noise-cancelling headphones and I had some ear plugs stored in my bag for travel.

The sunny weather was continuing, so we had only bought light jumpers with us for the day, and removed even these when we arrived to Pompeii. The entrance to Pompeii was only a few minutes walk from the train station, and lines were non-existent. This winter travel thing is really working out for us, especially now that we'd reached the warmer southern areas of Italy where we could peel off the layers and rock a tee.

Our first look at Pompeii

For the next two and a half hours we explored Pompeii. Soon after entering we walked through a brothel with pictures of couples in various embraces emblazoned on the wall, which connected onto what seemed like a bath house. The more we wandered through Pompeii, the more we discovered that they really liked their baths.

At a bath house

Walls with depictions of couples in a brothel

A main street was shortly down the road. Large flattened rocks were placed in regular intervals along the street, connecting one side to the other. Reading about it later, we discovered that pedestrians used them to cross the streets, as the street itself was used as a drainage and sewerage system. Spaces in between the stepping stones allowed vehicles to pass.

Stepping Stones across the main street

A smaller side street of Pompeii

The main road was lined with crumbling skeletons of shop fronts and expansive houses. Many of the houses still had frescoes painted on the walls, and some were quite intact. Wandering through the layouts was fascinating, and I let my imagination run wild, taking me through each room as if I had lived there too. I made a mental note to 'Sim' the layouts later.

Temple remains

A statue in a temple

A bath in a bath house

A villa courtyard

Ancient porn

Ancient fast food outlet

The presence of Mt. Vesuvius was constantly in the background of our sight, and gave a strong sense of the panic the Vesuvians must have felt as it erupted and buried them in hot ash. The mountain looked like it should have been a strong protector, stoically standing over the city, but instead became the harbinger of death.


Pompeii was huge, and knew we didn't really hope to get through it all, so we picked a few places of interest to see. We saw temples to Venus and Apollo, public forums, ancient take-outs joints and a Necropolis (ancient graveyard with elaborate tombs). At the other side of Pompeii we trudged down into the amphitheatre, our feet mimicking the steps of gladiators, to arrive in the middle of a rounded bowl of seats, where rows of jeering onlookers would have sat. From there we walked through some side streets back to the main street, and on to the theatre. Somehow we managed to walk past the Garden of Fugitives without realising it - and after searching so hard for it, which I was so disappointed about.

The theatre

Under the amphitheatre

It was getting quite late in the day and our feet were aching from walking across uneven stone, so we decided to call it a day on Pompeii and head back to Sorrento.