Today In The Year 79AD...

...Mt. Vesuvius erupted, burying the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum under so many feet of volcanic debris that they were not rediscovered officially until the 1700s.

When I was a senior in college, our group of friends debated what to do for spring break.  It was to be our last holiday before we entered the real world of full-time jobs and responsibilities and we wanted to take advantage of it.  My roommate and I (she of this post) were looking at the travel section of the local paper one evening and came across an ad for a reasonably-priced travel package to Rome.  Both of us are partly of Italian heritage, and we thought it would be a fantastic opportunity to go to the land of our forebears.  Much to our dismay, the rest of the group, including our boyfriends at the time, decided that they would rather go to Daytona Beach.  We said the hell with them all and went to Rome by ourselves.

One morning, we decided to go to Pompeii for the day.  This involved taking a train from Rome to Naples and then changing trains there to get to Pompeii.  My grandmother's family was from the Naples area, so I was glad to get a look at it, even though all we saw was from the train windows.  My expectations were low--Grandma regularly said "va' fa Napoli" (go to Naples) when she meant "go to hell"--but it looked like a regular city and not particularly hell-like. I was almost disappointed.

At any rate, we got to Pompeii about midday and started walking around.  We had purchased bread, cheese and wine back in Rome, and had our lunch sitting on the stones at the top of Pompeii's ancient amphitheater, looking directly at Mt. Vesuvius and willing it not to erupt again until after we left!  

The city itself was amazing...a moment from centuries ago frozen in time.  The statues and buildings were largely intact, right down to the frescoes on the walls.  You can walk through the baths and the bordellos (interesting frescoes there...), the Forum and many of the shops and houses.  It would be easy to think of the place as just a giant museum, except for the many plaster casts of people who died where they fell during the eruption and left body-shaped holes in the ash.  I remember thinking how small the people were by comparison to people today.  Some of those casts stayed with me mentally for days afterward...the images were tough to shake.  

Altogether a fascinating trip, and I am so very glad that we made the detour from Rome, but I have to admit that I have been very dubious about spending much time around volcanoes since then.