June 26 Pompeii

Today we went to Pompeii!! Last night and the night before Joe and I did a little research so we´d appreciate it more. We learned that because of the way the wind blew, the debris the volcano spewed out at the beginning of the eruption fell in Pompeii and not so much in Herculaneum. This caused many deaths due to roofs caving in Pompeii. In Herculaneum, the people died from a pyroclastic surge that killed them immediately because the heat instantly cooked them and then their brains exploded. In Pompeii, however the ash in the air was so thick that it creeped into every space of a person´s home. When they breathed it in, it mixed with the liquid in a person´s lungs, became cement, and suffocated them. That´s how most people died in Pompeii. What I thought was interesting was the people in both cities did not know Vesuvius was a volcano since it lied dormant for 800 years. Scary stuff!

I had no clue how big Pompeii is. The guidebook recommended 4 to 5 hours, but we were there 6 1/2 hours and we still didn´t see it all. A person could stay there for days. We saw people´s homes, the baths, the amphitheatre where plays were held, the coliseum for the Gladiatorial games, the cemetery, the forum and merchant shops, temples, etc. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera and had to rely on Joe´s camera, but what a day!