(30-April) Fabio's Pompei

Stephani did great again, Studio83 (http://www.bandbstudio83pompei.com/english/dove_siamo_eng.html ) is a lovely B&B in the heart of Pompei, and it's proprietor, Fabio, is a gracious, friendly host. This morning he had breakfast all set up for us at a table in the next room. He has worked very hard to make his B&B stand out, right down to the many rock n roll paintings of famous actors and musicians on the walls. Bruce Springsteen "The Boss" adorns our room along with a Warholesque Sophia Loren, all painted by one of his talented friends. Fabio looks to be in his twenties and by all accounts extremely successful at running his own B&B.

Fabio, proprietor of fabulous Studio83 B&B

Mark and Jill should be here in a few hours, so we are off to find nail polish remover, which should be an adventure as tomorrow is the Italian equivalent of Labor Day, and they rewarded themselves with another day off (today), so everything is likely to be closed until Wednesday ;-)

In the main square there is a memorial for the victims of 9/11. It is a 15ft iron girder with September 11 in Italian, and an American flag next to it. It looks quite beautiful. There were likely many Italians who were lost on 9/11.

4:30 p.m.

Well, as it turns out, I was wrong yet again, many of the shops were open for business today after all, and so Stephani sits here in the room doing her nails. This morning when we returned from our walk, Mark and Jilly were in their room, having just arrived from Sussex. it was so great to see familiar faces, and we were pleasantly surprised to see that they have not aged in the four years since we were together last.

We set off to find Pompei, chatting and generally picking up the conversation where it left off. Mark was telling me of his recent trouble when some louts broke into his shed and tried to steal his Vespa, kicking the handlebars in an attempt to break the steering lock, but ended up badly damaging the bike. Horrible. Stephani gave Jilly the update on the trip so far, pretty soon we were at the entrance gates to the Pompei ruins.

We walked the stunning ruins for about three hours, learning many interesting facts, for instance, 17 years before Mount Vesuvius erupted, Pompei experienced a violent 6 point earthquake which destroyed many of the buildings. On August 24th, 79 A.D, Vesuvius erupted at roughly 12:00 creating a 27 kilometer tall explosion which emitted a rain shower of lava pellets and volcanic gas. Ash was spread over a 70 kilometer radius, and molten lava oozed as far as Naples. The inhabitants of Pompei were not killed by the burning lava, they were suffocated by poisonous gas and ash. There was so much ash it virtually buried the entire community. Titus, who was emperor at the time visited the area months later, but declared the area too devastated to rebuild and abandoned Pompei. It wasn't until 1592 when the architect Fontana who was working on building a canal made a discovery, and documented what he thought was a lost city. However, it wasn't until 1748 when Charles of Bourbon unearthed an artifact with the inscription "Pompei" that the official discovery was documented. Excavation of the ruins did not get under way until 1763, and when complete, Pompei was noted as an official stop on the Grand Tour of Europe.

We saw several mummified remains of actual victims of the event, and sheds full of pottery. The area was surprisingly well kept considering it has thousands of tourists visiting it each year.

After the Pompei tour we went for a nice lunch at a local restaurant, and met two U.S. Navy seamen, a young man from Texas and a young lady from Merced who are in the port of Naples with the Marines. They were very polite and friendly and had asked us where the ruin was. The young man went on to tell us that part of the ship he is helping to sail was built out of steel from the World Trade Center. I found this to be quite interesting because I had believed most of the wreckage from the twin towers had been sent by barge to China for recycling. How fitting that we built Navy ships out of the wreckage.

We said goodbye to our Navy friends and went to the square to talk and eat gelato, then headed back to the room where we are relaxing before dinner. Mark and Jilly will be leaving early tomorrow. Our plan is to take a train for an unplanned visit to Sorrento, a coastal town that is reachable via the city train service.

Thanks for all of the nice comments you posted recently, they made Stephani and I smile broadly to know you were all gathered reading our posts during family gatherings. We will try to keep it as interesting as possible with this limitation of not being able to share any of the pictures until we get back. The only pictures we can add to posts are screen captures from web sites, which isn't as good because we have been getting some simply stunning photos of our own, just wait.