Visiting Pompeii and Herculaneum (Belated Amalfi Adventures Part 3)

To be quite honest, my life has been fairly uneventful as of late (or as uneventful as living in Rome can be). Between all the rain (we had showers and thunderstorms for nearly a week straight), the cooler weather (it's actually chilly, I swear!  This morning it was in the high 30s!), and the fact that it's getting dark around 4:30 PM, we barely got off the "compound" (as Tom has taken to calling the Academy) this past week.  As such, I don't have anything new to report, but, luckily, I do have some material still stored up for our trip down to the Amalfi Coast last month.

Herculaneum (with modern buildings in background)

One of the great things about the Amalfi Coast is that it's very close to lots of other interesting places, including the historic sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum.  You can get to either very easily from the train that runs down to Sorrento from Naples. As most people probably learned in school, Mount Vesuvius erupted in the first century, spewing stones, ash, and hot gas over some of the neighboring towns (including Pompeii and Herculaneum). There was some time to escape, and many people did, but there were still thousands who died as a result of the eruption.  As school children, most of us probably found this history lesson either fascinating or terrifying (count me in the latter group), due to the human interest aspect of the story.  We imagined what the residents were thinking and doing once the eruption began, and thought about how we might have reacted had we been there.  (Would we have made a break for it or stayed and tried to ride out the storm?)

Beautiful Fresco in Herculaneum House

However, most archaeologists and ancient historians who work on Pompeii and/or Herculaneum have much broader interests than the towns' final days.  Tom could probably explain this better than I could, but, as I understand it, the same stone and ash that led to the demise of the town also preserved the cities in a way that very few other places have been.  For example, you can still see many of the ancient frescos (that normally would have faded), and the structures are essentially frozen in time, since the residents never had a chance to repurpose building materials in later centuries.  Archaeologists and historians can therefore learn a lot about ancient life from studying Pompeii and Herculaneum, and, for this reason, some Pompeii literature that I read described the disaster as a "blessing in disguise."  I'm not sure I would go that far, but it certainly is an amazing experience being able to spend time in these places.

Herculaneum Street

If you've never heard of Herculaneum, you're not alone.  I certainly hadn't before I was dating a classics grad student!  This site isn't as well-known by the public because it's much smaller in size.  For you Minnesotans, if Pompeii was Minneapolis, than Herculaneum would be Stillwater (or something similar). Before we went to either, I asked Tom which he would recommend if someone only had time to see one of the two.  He felt that it was a toss-up, as each site had something different to offer.  Herculaneum is, as I've said, much, much smaller- perhaps something like four or five square blocks. However, it's kind of cool that you can look down from above and get a sense of the full city layout. On the other hand, you could spend an entire day wandering around Pompeii.  Another difference is that many of the buildings in Herculaneum have preserved second stories (a rarity at an ancient site), so you can get a bit of a better feel of what the town would have looked like- although you do have to mentally block out the modern buildings which now abut the ancient site.  There are also less tourists at Herculaneum, which is nice (especially during high season, I'm sure).  For these reasons, Tom felt that you'd have an equally good time visiting either spot.

Temple of Apollo in Pomepeii

However, after visiting both places, I have to say that my answer (hands down) would be Pompeii.  My guess is that our difference in opinion is based on the fact that the experience of a layperson (like me!) is so much different than that of a specialist (or even a person with a heavy interest in ancient history).  For me, the visit to Herculaneum was nice enough, but it felt a bit like a forced learning field trip. Since it was a smaller town, many of the buildings were similar, and after about 30 minutes, I felt like I had seen enough.  On the other hand, I really could have spent all day just wondering around Pompeii and imagining what life would have been like there.  Since this was a bigger city, there were also more "main attractions" such as the forum, the amphitheater (for gladiators, beast hunts, and public executions), and theater (for plays and musical performances), as well as the houses and shops you can see in Herculaneum.  On our visit, it was gloomy and rainy, but Pompeii also has a lot more green space and views of the surrounding mountains, which I'm sure are just breathtaking on a clear sunny day.

Amphitheater in Pompeii 

As with most sites in Italy, one downside to these places is that there is very little on-site information for tourists.  If a place like Pompeii existed in the US, I imagine that there would be a huge museum on-site with some of the artifacts, pictorial recreations, explanatory postings, and interactive exhibits.  In Italy, though, there is much less emphasis on that sort of thing (not to mention that there's no funding for it, either), and if you want to see the artifacts, you'll have to go to museums elsewhere.  Of course, you can still get a good sense of the place if you bring along a good guidebook, or take a tour (lucky for me I have my very own personal tour guide!).  Still, I imagine it's a sad truth that many tourists come and go without really knowing what they are seeing.

Here are a few more pictures of the two sites so you can get a better feel for things:

Tom in one of the Herculaneum Shops

Herculaneum

Inside the Amphitheater in Pompeii

Pompeii House (note the beautiful floor with a pool to collect the water from the skylight!!)

Pompeii Has Great Views!  (modern city in background)

With all of that said, though, I am very glad we had the opportunity to visit both sites.  I learned a lot, and now finally have some mental images to put with my 6th grade history lesson!

Well, it's back to studying Italian for me, and after that I am going to help Tom start studying his many lines for the Academy Christmas play (which I'll tell you more about in an upcoming post).  He's going to be fabulous as "Little Boy."

Alla Prossima,
Erin

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Mon. Dec. 3:  Today was our first sunny day in ages!  The Tiber has been flooded (for the second time since we've been here) and the park where I run is basically a giant mud pit!  And it's chilly!  Today the high was 49 and the low was 38.