Pompeii: Nothing could 'ruin' our day!

Can you tell Sarah came up with that one?

For those of you reading this (if anyone is) I'm sure you would have heard of Pompeii- its located just across the bay from Naples, and is famous for all the wrong reasons. On the 24th August 79AD, the summit of Vesuvius exploded, burying Pompeii under 7 metres of earth, and wiping out most of its residents. Fast forward to now, and what you have is one of Naples' most visited tourist sites. On the day we visited, the 35 degree C heat had kept all but the hardcore history buffs away (and a dragged along Laura haha) so armed with a water bottle and suntan lotion, we set off to discover Pompeii.

Now, we won't give you a history lecture (although I'm quite sure Sarah would love to), we'll let you look it up online instead.

Straight from the train station, Sarah picked up a trusty guidebook, complete with free map, and became the tour guide for the day. Here's the thing with Pompeii- it doesn't matter how up to date the tourist map is, you can guarantee they will have excavated more buildings since it was printed, and therefore trying to follow a map will no doubt make you end up walking quite the distance. How do we know it wasn't just our map? Well, other than the ruins, the most common site at Pompeii are groups of people trying to decipher the maps.

So after a successful start, we ended up doing the highlight tour. We went through the list to find things we thought would be interesting (read: sex, gods, prostitution, food, baths) The Forum, the Temple of Jupiter, the House of Fawn, the Temple Baths, House of the Tragic Poet, House of the Gladiators, Large Theatre (creative name, right?), The Odeon, and finishing with the Ampitheatre and the brothel. We came across most of the other things on our tour (by chance and terrible signage) and in total we spent 5 hours immersing ourselves in the historic city. Well worth visiting, just make sure you take comfortable footwear (those streets weren't made for walking) and a ton of water. What they don't put in the guidebook is that this is a modern day exercise camp.

The Forum

The House of Jupiter

Marketplace- that is an actual Pompeii person!

The Forum Baths

Brothel bed- not comfortable!

The ampitheatre

Large theatre- and Sarah jumping!

A menu option at the brothel

2 floor house!

The House of the Fawn

This actually says 'Beware of the Dog'- it is in the House of the Tragic Poet

Upon returning to England, Sarah decided to take being a history nerd to the next level and engrossed herself in a 6 part BBC series about Pompeii. She had a whole day on her hands. They ended the series with a rather disturbing warning, which we feel is only fair to pass on- the volcano should erupt every 2000 years. The last eruption was 79AD- and the next one is due *dun, dun DUN*