Scavi

Pompei itself wiped my mother out, twice. We entered through the back gates which messed up the walking tour we had planned, so we decided to walk all the way through the site to the main entrance, then turn around and start with our original plan. Because it was so interesting, right from the start, we took almost 90 minutes making our way to the main gates. By that time, we were already out of water and needed to find shade to cool off.



We sat in the main entrance tunnel for 10-15 minutes while Mommy cooled off and finished her water before we discovered that there is a restaurant inside the Scavi. As soon as we realized we could eat and drink for real, and go to the toilet, we headed through the Forum and found an air-conditioned cafeteria to sit down in. On our way, we saw a group of Japanese tourists who know how to travel. Almost all of them carried parasols, and many of the women wore gloves to protect their hands from the sun.



After a light lunch, we sought out the House of the Tragic Poet with the “Cave Canem” mosaic



and several of the larger houses and brothels (the one with all of the dirty mosaics was closed for renovations),



before my mother began to get chills (borderline heat stroke?) and we made for the exit. Even at that point, we were still about 20 minutes from the exit, so we were beat by the time we actually hit the street again. All told, we were inside over four hours, probably closer to five, before we left through the same gates by which we entered. In the car park across from the entrance/exit, we stopped for some gelato, our first of the trip. A special shout out goes to Victoria Layser who recommended the chocolate chip gelato. It was great and for a few minutes, you were with us in Pompeii!



Above: Worship her, she is Headi.