The ancient Roman city ruins of Pompeii – ITALY

With a late departure flight, a stop in Pompei to visit the ancient Roman city ruins of Pompeii was in order. The town of Pompeii is roughly an hour’s drive from Positano and half an hour from the Naples airport.

There are different spellings around the town, Pompei and Pompeii. The modern city today, is Pompei and the ancient city ruins site is Pompeii, with two i’s. Now that that's clear, here’s a little history and why it’s an interesting place to visit. In 79AD an enormous volcano eruption happened about 30km away from Pompeii, with its destruction leaving around 6 metres of ash covering the whole city. People suffered from extreme heat conditions and ultimately perished. The city was rediscovered about 1,500 years after the tragedy and now lies mostly uncovered. It is the main tourist attraction in Pompei and has been for over 250 years – that’s the history in a nutshell.

The walk around the historic grounds is enjoyable, especially on a sunny day. Walking through the remarkable part of history, you’ll find well preserved historic items and bodies, due the lack of air and moister under all the ash, that once buried and suffocated the ancient city. The bodies found were astounding to see, as many of them were found in intriguing positions, a moment frozen in time. Very sad, but tells a historic story of the devasting events preserved from thousands of years ago.

Overall, we spent about 3 hours walking around the ancient city and didn’t even manage to cover every pathway, as it was built covering such a vast area (if we had an audio guide, we might still be there!). I would recommend grabbing some sandwiches/snacks and drinks for a picnic inside to relax and take it all in. It was a highlight and a great end to a weekend.

 

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