A wet day in Pompeii

Hard to see what progress was made in 2500 years. As we wandered around the ruins of what was a large complex city essentially built around 600BC with some improvements by the Greeks and Romans over the following centuries, really hard to see the fundamental difference between this and the medieval cities across Europe. Brick and stone walls, clay tiles, rudimentary plumbing… Of course one reads the books and studies the history, in Rome you see some pretty flash places; the forum, the coliseum, but you don’t get a sense of the scale of the cities and technology until you see Pompeii. A city in it’s entirety and that doesn’t even include the suburbs that are understood to have sprawled.


From the frescoes and mosaics to the temples, theatres and guild halls – a truly fantastic piece of the world. Can’t understand why we talk about this period as ancient history as something distinct from history of the first have of the millennium, seems we know as little about each with pictures, myths and interpretation being the main source of information.
Other images – rain drops, mist (couldn’t see Vesuvius, I reckon you hardly ever can), dogs, dogs and more dogs.


The new city of Pompeii is a pretty dull affair. A nice church, but otherwise, well not a lot. And the shops never seem to open, couldn’t quite figure that out