Well, holy fuck, what an awesome day! We headed out to meet our tour, had a few coffees along the way and went first to Pompei and then to Mount Vesuvius.
Things I didn’t know;
- The reason Pompei was destroyed instead of, say, Naples, was really down to the wind direction that day.
- The people who lived there didn’t know Vesuvius was a volcano. They thought it was just a mountain, and they used it to grow crops including wine grapes (not knowing the reason the soil was so good for growing grapes). They would have been utterly shocked when the top part of the mountain blew off.
- The Sea used to come right up to Pompei. It’s now 5 kilometres away. The debris literally filled in 5 kilometres of ocean.
- The volcano erupted for 3 days.
- Vesuvius is basically now two different mountain peaks because so much of the top was blown off.
- it’s currently 1200 meters to the top of Vesuvius. It is estimated that it was actually 3000 meters up when it blew. That’s 1800 meters that exploded off of the top.
- the wealthy people in Pompei had less pipes that brought water into their homes.
- The prostitutes in the Pompei made wild temps from the windows to entice the sailors in the right direction when they came ashore. This was because it was an international port with sailors who spoke all languages.
- The plaster casts in Pompei that were “frozen in time” have human skeletons inside them.
- 75% of Pompei has been excavated, but 25% is still buried and is being excavated very slowly.
- in the brothel, there were erotic frescos on the walls that were like a menu to choose from!
