Pompeii

This was Taran's blog day but he is busy writing a long piece on the Temple of Artemis

After a big drive from Rome we had a very interesting day in Pompeii. It is incredible that a busy city was just stopped in its tracks and buried for almost 2000 years by volcanic ash. It is very well preserved and easy to imagine it populated and bustling again.  There are many signs of how daily life was lived (and how it suddenly ended) from the elegant and welcoming mosaic entrance halls of the wealthy to the wheel ruts in the market place and the lead piping of the public baths (and the remains of meals on the table and the plaster casts of  people and pets in their death throes). Pompeii is a maze of streets and buildings and historical immersion and easy to get lost in. 

Then we had another long drive to our first wild camping night.  We pulled off the main road to a little side road that climbed a hill and there we stopped in a gravel area just beyond a wild rose bush and set up the van as the sun went down.

We were all very tired but that did not stop us cooking an excellent supper of lentils and pasta before bed.