Today I’m sharing photos from the third tour of my trip. Three other Stampin’ Up! demonstrators (Paula Butler, Lisa Freeman, and Lisa Padgett) and I toured Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast. Our guide for Pompeii was an archaeologist who has studied the ancient city, so she was very knowledgeable. 

I used my phone to take some panoramic photos. The panorama software sometimes makes things look a bit wonky. That’s why some of the lines are oddly curved. Like these two of the amphitheatre in Pompei.

S

a Pompei street

These are stepping stones for crossing the street. The sidewalks are higher than the street. That’s because the streets were usually covered in animal droppings and frequently flooded, and no one wanted to walk through all that. The stones had to be low enough for wagons to go over them. You can see the ruts in the stones from the wheels.

Entryway to a building. See the rut along the bottom? That’s where there was a sliding door!

Part of a house

This kitchen is exactly as it was found, with all the items in the same places.

Ancient graffiti! The stone walls in Pompei were covered in plaster and painted. On the outside of this store, there are ads for people running for office.

ornate ceiling

panorama of a large room with some surviving frescos on the walls

this is a laundry

frescos on the outside of a business

panorama of the entryway of a house – look at the amazing mosaic floor!

beautiful frescos, with a local dog taking a break in the shade

This is probably the only photo I can show you from the brothel. It’s one of the rooms where business was conducted. Yes, that’s a bed.

The bath house. The openings in the wall are lockers where men would leave their clothes.

The sweat room. The floor was raised on the tiles you see here. Hot air was run under the floor so it was very hot. After sweating, they would be rubbed down with oil, then it would be scraped off. That was a bath. Remember, there was no soap.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the plaster molds of the victims of Pompei. Archaeologists kept finding empty spaces with bones in them. They started filling the cavities with plaster, then removing the dirt from around them. Here are a couple of those plaster people. The first one is lying down.

This one was sitting against a wall.

l-r: me, Lisa P., Lisa F., and Paula in Pompei with Mt. Vesuvius in the background.

Paula and me on the Amalfi Coast

What a view!

This was a wonderful day! I find Pompei absolutely fascinating. This was my second visit there, and I want to go back. They were very advanced, and after it was destroyed, it took centuries to get that technology back. This was my birthday, and the day my husband Neal arrived in Rome. He took me out for a delicious dinner, then we prepared to get on the ship the next morning.

S

S