Pompeii

2006

couldn't avoid Napoli

To get to Pompei from Ischia, I found no reasonable way of avoiding Naples. Oh well. Naples put me off enough that I considered doing Pompei via a tour operator. But I decided not to; I held on to my principle -- no arranged/guided tours, no sigtseeing buses. Being chauffered to the spot kills the whole purpose -- I might as well watch a virtual tour on video. Much of the joy of travelling is in finding the place myself. So I found Pompei myself, blessed my pair of booties with Pompei's dust, and survived Naples unscratched.

The special Circumvesuviana train, not Trenitalia, was the way to get from Naples to Pompei, a return trip was only 4,50 Euros. (Note: the decimal point was given as a comma in European notation.) The Circumvesuviana station (one station away from the central: Piazza Garibaldi) in Naples was surprisingly peaceful, nothing typical of Naples. On the train, mobile music makers got on with their portable instruments, playing and singing continuously from "Oh Susanna!" to "Magarina" without a pause in between. Pompei Scavi is the station to get off if you are visiting the ruins. The entrance to the ruins is just a few steps away.

At the entrance I was greeted with some stray dogs. That's a sight I have grown less accustomed to since living away from Malaysia. But never mind, it is southern Italy.

professor at the ruins

At the entrance where guests queued up for tickets, sweaty local tour guides were lobbying loudly for customers in different languages: "Last chance! Last chance! Tour starting in 2 minutes! 3 places left!" On one of the tour guides' name badge I found his name beginning with the title, "Professor xxx". I was alone and had no one to laugh with!

O site, there were not only ruins and ruins and ruins... but tourists and tourists and more tourists. Pompei is less ruined than Rome's Ancient City, in that the walls of the buildings are still erect, which means:

• I could seek temporary shelter from the heat by going behind the shadows of the walls.
• There were structures to sit on when I needed a rest. The ground was uneven on many parts of the site -- it tiring but manageable.
• I would have to navigate every street to see it all. I didn't, because I felt that seeing a few streets was adequate. I would have, were I a historian or an anthropologist.

Forum Romanum

2004

dropping a dozen jaws

Rome's Ancient City is different. It is ruined enough for me to stand there and see all - a sight which took me out of this world. Perhaps Rome's impressed me more because I was unprepared, I didn't know it was going to be like that, it caught me by surprised, I stumbled upon it as I walked around the area. If I had a dozen jaws I would have dropped them all.

From that moment the experience set a standard of expectation for me. Visits elsewhere could never match up to Rome's Ancient City. Nowhere as ruined. Nowhere as breathe-taking.