Unfortunately, this is exactly what seems, a petrified body found… There’s a child, there’s a dog, there’s a young man … We are already here at the Central Station with our tickets to Pompeii, and on the escalator. The ticket is very cheap, E 5.60 for two people and in forty minutes we get there. And we’ll try to sit on the right side, right? Left side of the train. No … on the right side. Or left? Left! Well, I think it’s the right one, because we want to see the Vesuvius. We have to find this train here, 21259, 9:35 am. The woman at the information desk wrote here for us. And then it’s not here on the board, what do we do? It’s on the board, look there, 9:35 am Here, look, validate your card. We’ve just found out that it is on the left side. Which means … Tiago was right. Tiago was right! On one side is the sea and on the other side is Vesuvius. We jump back and forth to take a look at both of them. There are still seats available in the back. Then we go there to take a look at the see the sea and the Vesuvius. When you arrive at the train station in Pompeii, you have two options to get to the ruins, either you walk for about half an hour, or you take a shuttle in front of the station. It’s E3 per person, and we are going to take it, because the sun is really strong. Let’s go then! Air conditioning, only E3, or half an hour walk. I’m feeling cheated. Are you feeling cheated Tiago? Yeah, the ride was really fast. Yes, we spent like two minutes in the car… it’s not possible that it would take half an hour walking! Anyway, now we’re trying to find the entrance. The ticket is E13, and the first Sunday of each month is free for everybody. There are several people offering tours while you are here, and they charge E120 for two hours, for up to ten people. So, they try to gather people. Join ten people, each one pays E12, join eight, each one pays E15…and so on… You can see that there are some columns back here, some ruins, but this is just a little bit of what this incredible place has to show. There’s a lot of history around here! After all, this is not just an archaeological site, it is one of the most important in Italy, it is an entire city that was buried. It was buried, then it was discovered in the 16th century, they started to dig only in the 18th century. The result is this incredible place to visit. And look, the responsible for all of this is right there on the other side. It is Mount Vesuvius, that erupted and exterminated the city of Pompeii and several others in the region. Nine cities were buried. Pompeii is the largest one, therefore, the most famous. This is one of the main streets in Pompeii. They know it because of the houses here. They say that on the main streets there were more stores than houses. To identify what were houses and what were stores, you check the entrances. There are wide entrances, from the stores, and narrow entrances, from the houses. In some places there are ruins with holes like this, like a counter with some holes, which means it was a bar, the place where they used to put the food. It’s really cool. Do you see this space here? It is very difficult to know what it was, except for one detail, look at the bottom, you can already imagine, this is an oven, very similar to the ones we use today to make pizza, for example. So, they deduced it was a bakery. And the street was made like this, on a slope, to drain the water. You can notice that there are stones and some deeper parts, to allow the wheels of the wagons to pass. The lava preserved Pompeii so well, that it’s possible to see political advertisements. You can read here “Cornelius”. You can really read what is written, it is impressive. This room was used for the security of the house, and two thousand years later it has not changed. As it is right at the entrance, the safety equipment is still there. These colors are all original. They used the red and ochre shades a lot. In this room you can see these black parts, they are black columns. At that time they did not have a mirror, so they used them as a mirror. They used to wax these black parts, make them very shiny, to make it possible to see themselves in there. Do you see it here? You can have an idea of this reflection. At least six or seven skeletons were found here, inside this room. There are some things made of wood that were rebuilt, but the only original piece of wood here in Pompeii is that column over there. These signs are original, with the name of the house. Domus means house. You can see that they all have almost the same rooms. In this area there was one of the public baths in Pompeii. Our guide was explaining that here there was a dressing room, either male or female, because they were separated. There was another one here, and a bathroom back there. Right here were I am, there was a pool. Back here there was a sauna. The temperature reached almost 60°C. All around here was full of smoke, and there was a cold bathtub in the back, so people could cool off a little bit. Here was the area called the refrigerated bath, for those who wanted to take a cold shower, because normally the baths were hot. And look how amazing this place is. Unfortunately, this is exactly what seems, a petrified body found, and there you can see that it is a belt, so it was a slave. More than that, this position that she is, crouching, covering her face, is because most people died from the toxic gas, not necessarily from the heat, the lava or the explosion. They believe that in just twelve seconds people were dead. They estimate that 13,000 people lived here in Pompeii at the time of the eruption. Around 10,000 managed to escape, but between 3,000 and 4,000 were killed by the Vesuvius. There you see a dog found petrified, and it is in that position because he was tied up. Here you can see a chain around its neck. This is probably a man’s body, crouched. You notice that his hands are in front of his face. This one is more impressive, because it is a baby’s body. Also perfect, you can even see the expression. There’s a lot of reflection, because the body is behind a glass. It’s impressive, right? It impresses! It’s sad! It is impressive, it is worth knowing, it is worth watching all of this, to try to understand the history a little more. And we’re now in a cool place, called Forum. It was the heart of Pompeii. This place is called Basilica, but at first it is not related with the Church, the churches that are called Basilicas too. This was the place where trials happened. Then you look carefully at this building and understand why churches are called Basilicas nowadays. The Basilicas really resemble this shape, a central nave, two more on the sides, and the altar over there. Here we have an example of what has not been dug yet. This is exactly how Pompeii was before the digging starts, this mixture of stones, dust, rocks, sediments. Here you can see that they are still digging. But imagine all this mixture here, covering all the place. That’s how it was before! We can have an idea of the depth the city was before the excavations. There is a lot under the ground to reach this level of what has already been unburied. An important tip, if you stop at Pompei Scavi station instead of Pompei station, you will be close to one of the entrances of this archaeological site. This way you don’t need to take that transfer we took. Leave the bus at Pompei Scavi, go down the street, and soon you’ll see on the left an entrance to the Archaeological Site. Well, now we’re going to the Museum in Naples. Many relics found in Pompeii are in the Archeological Museum there.
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