Continuing to document my 2023 family holiday in Italy. I’ve already covered Venice [confusion.cc], Florence [confusion.cc], Siena and Pisa [confusion.cc], and Rome [confusion.cc] and the Vatican City [confusion.cc]. Now for the penultimate entry: Pompeii [wikipeida.org], the ancient city buried in the ashes of Mount Vesuvius and rediscovered in the 16th century and still, to this day, being excavated.
We went to Pompeii as a day trip from Rome (as my wife and I did back in 2007). It’s a long day trip taking a few hours to get to Pompeii, via Naples and then a rickety old graffiti covered train around the mountain to the historic Pompeii. But it’s worth it. I would love to visit Herculaneum too and I could spend more time in Pompeii as there is too much to see on a short winters day, but we made a good go of it.
We started in the forum, where the temple of Jupiter, Apollo and various public building are. We walked all the way to the other side of the city, to see the amphitheater and we passed the theater on the way. But these are not what you visit Pompeii for, the real attraction is the real lived in city. The many houses and shops that are so well preserved.
There are so many houses and shops many with spectacularly preserved fresco and mosaics. The main Pompeii page on Wikipedia lists:
- House of the Centenary [wikipeida.org]
- House of the Faun [wikipeida.org]
- House of Julia Felix [wikipeida.org]
- House of the Greek Epigrams [wikipeida.org]
- House of Lucius Caecilius Iucundus [wikipeida.org]
- House of Loreius Tiburtinus [wikipeida.org]
- House of Menander [wikipeida.org]
- House of the Prince of Naples [wikipeida.org]
- House of Sallust [wikipeida.org]
- House of the Silver Wedding [wikipeida.org]
- House of the Small Fountain (Pompeii) [wikipeida.org]
- House of the Surgeon [wikipeida.org]
- House of the Tragic Poet [wikipeida.org]
- House of the Vettii [wikipeida.org]
And that’s just the houses, and just the one with dedicated Wikipedia pages in English. Check out the list of categories on WikiMedia for Ancient Roman frescos in Pompeii [commons.wikimedia.org], it lists 47 subcategories, almost all of which are individual houses with enough fresco to justify a list of photos and older painting and drawings of the fresco.
We visited several of the houses on the Wikipedia list, and a few shops and one of the public baths. But the highlight of our visit was the House of the Vettii [wikipeida.org]. We went out of our way to rush to this one because it has a lot of fresco but also because it has a particular one next to the main door on the street. Wikipedia declines to display a photo of it, but gives the following description: “The painting depicts Priapus weighing his phallic member on a set of scales” and it does not disappoint:
Anyway, as I said, I could spend a lot more time in Pompeii, to see each and every house and shop and public building that is open. One day I’ll have to make a tour of southern Italy and Sicily.
Enough for this entry, I need to start working on the Milan, our last stop so I can get them on Flickr and write a post about them ASAP. Less than 48 hours until this year’s holiday starts.
You can view the full Pompeii, Italy, December 2023 [flickr.com] photoset on Flickr.