Catching up

Sorry we haven't written in a while -- a bit of writer's block and a bit of busy schedule.  So our last posts were Ellie on the Scene videos in Pompei and Vesuvius.  From there, we hit the stunning Amalfi coast, a few days in the countryside outside of Rome and now, Siena.   We arrived here last Saturday.  This is going to be our "homebase" for about a month and from here we can take day trips or overnights to visit all the great sites in the area.

As you could see in Ellie's video, Pompei is a pretty incredible place.  Even though it was rainy and cold, we spent almost the whole day there walking through the ruins and really getting a feel for what life was like in 79A.D.  Except for feeding people to the lions and other ghastly ways of treating people, it is incredible to see how civilized the Romans were.  As I mentioned before, there is a lot of stuff in the history books, but it doesn't really hit you (at least it didn't really hit me) as it does when you're standing on the spot.

Rome and Pompei were Roman centers.  Now we've been in Siena for a week and yesterday we went and visited a couple other nearby towns.  This is more a medieval area.  In just a week, we can really feel the contrasts between the two.  Romans had their act together.  Cities were laid out in organized grids centered on the forum.  Streets were wide (as you saw in Ellie's video, they had sidewalks and even washed the streets regularly and put stepping stones in them so people could cross without getting wet), buildings were bright and airy, there were many public baths so people could keep clean and more.  Medieval cities seem to be the opposite -- the result of having to be contained inside high thick walls to keep the invading neighbors out and lack of a strong central authority.  The Dark Ages must have been pretty dark.

As we have the chance to explore this area more, we will be heading more into the Renaissance.  It will be interesting to see the changes.

A wide, main street in Pompei.  The stones in the street are original.  The way they were fit together is amazing -- they haven't done anything to restore this street because they haven't had to.  The city is huge, with thousands  of homes, tons of bakeries, fast food joints, bars, etc found throughout. 

 

As Ellie mentioned in her video, archeologists used plaster to create these horribly sad "statues" showing how people died in the eruption 2000 years ago.  People we're caught in shower of ashes and buried almost instantly.  Over time, their bodies decomposed and left spaces.  As archeologists were excavating (excavations started over 300 years ago) they found these spaces and realized what they were.  So they filled them with plaster to make these casts.

There is beautiful artwork all over Pompei... mosaics, frescoes, columns, statues.  This mosaic, found in the entryway of a home, shows a dog and says "Cave Canem", or "Beware of the Dog" in Latin.

This incredible, original mosaic was also found in the entryway of a home in Pompei. 

The original of this beautiful, little statue is in the museum in Naples, but this replica stands in the middle of a fountain in a garden.  It is about 18" tall but in no danger of being trod upon by dwarves (wow, we can even weave cinematic allusions into our flowing prose!).

This is a garden with a fountain, surrounding columns, and patios with mosaics on the floors and frescoes on the walls.  Roman homes were relatively spacious, airy and bright.  They had central courtyards (even the not so rich people) that the rooms opened up onto and they were full of art -- mosaics, frescoes and statues.

As Ellie mentioned in her video, here is one of the many bakeries that were found in Pompei - Oven on the left, grindstones on the right.

A bar made of marble pieces shows where one of the many "fast food" joints used to stand in old-time Pompeii.  This wasn't a wealthy town (although that's hard to believe with all the amazing artwork around), and many Pompeians didn't have their own kitchens in their small homes, so they'd often stop at the corner joint to pick up something to eat. 

This is one of the main roads heading out of the city through one of the gates.

A beautiful fresco in the traditional yellow, red and blue colors...amazing.  You can still see a lot of the scenes and colors in the frescoes throughout the city.

I just really liked this little guy.

Another original fresco