Day 12 - Life from the Ashes

Woke up quite early this morning and headed to a train. The first train took us to Naples. Because it was Tabitha's birthday today, we made her a little gift while we traveled. On the left side, from the top: Rape of Persephone by Bernini, the Fortune Teller by Caravaggio, a Pollock, Woman of Willendorf. Right side, from the top: Byzantine apse mosaic, Raft of the Medusa by Géricault, the Parthenon, Madonna of the rocks, and the Arnolfini portrait. And, of course, the pyramids are on the bottom. It was a lot of fun :)

Excited to give Tabitha her gift.
I don't understand why people don't like pictures taken of them. I suppose I will never understand the phenomenon.

Then we caught another train that took us to Pompeii! It is an incredible place. I was surprised at how huge it is, but I shouldn't have been because it is an entire city. I took many pictures, most of which do not require any explanation. Some will probably be very similar.


Mount Vesuvius



Temple of Isis.
Cart rutts.
All those rocks are actually chunks which were in the ash cloud that killed the people.


Little bridge in case of flooding in the streets. They didn't have sewers.










The people who died here were covered in ash, obviously, and killed instantly because the ash was about 700 degrees. Well, when Pompeii was discovered, they also discovered these hollowed areas that had bones in them. So they filled them with plaster and this is the result. You can see the exact position that the person was in when they died. Pretty cool. I wish I had seen more of them.



Villa of Mysteries

Elisabeth

Heidi, Ali, Shamra
They started getting a little crazy.
And that was Pompeii. We headed back to Naples. We had a little free time so we saw the city a little bit. It isn't a particular pretty city, least not the part right next to the train station, and I didn't take any pictures. Oh well. On the way back to Rome, Claire, Tabitha, and I played card games. We played a game of Mao for seriously an hour! I almost won half a dozen times, but the actual winner was Claire. Sigh. Some day I will win. Once we got back to the apartment, I ate a ton of food because I need to get rid of it before we leave. It was quite tasty, but I'm not too picky with my pasta :) And this is one of the reasons I love Italia.

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