Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Veni, vidi, Pompeii!

Oliver's review of his visit to the historic Bay of Naples, in October.
 
Frozen in time.
Last half-term I had a holiday to the Amalfi coast, or the bay of Naples where Pompeii and Herculaneum is. On the first day I visited the very famous Pompeii and was amazed at the quality and quantity of what remained. I thought that, compared to British archaeology was very impressive. The highlight of Pompeii was the incredible bathhouse which was brilliant to see how a bathhouse really looked.



Pompeiian street with Mt. Vesuvius in the background.

On the second day we went to the National Museum of Archaeology in Naples. Naples was not a very nice place to say the least ! When we finnaly got to the museum I was a little disappointed. Many of the things I wanted to see, I could not because the Italian way of keeping a museum is very different to a British way. If they want to they just close off a gallery which is really annoying when you have gone there to see specific things.

Naples Museum

But on the third day was the highlight, when we went to Herculaneum. I thought that Herculaneum was alot better than Pompeii because the level of preservation was so much better. The wood was still all there. A olive press, rope and a pair of partition doors still remained from 2000 years ago. It was not as big as Pompeii because they have only excavated less than a quarter of the town.
I really enjoyed my holiday to Pompeii and would suggest it to anyone who wanted to go, but I would not suggest the National Museum of Naples because of the city and the Italian atitude to keeping a museum.

Oliver

3 comments:

  1. That sounds really interesting Oliver - it sounds like you had a good time. Aidan

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  2. It sounded amazing, what shocked me the most was that there was still some wood preserved in Hurculaneum, I am so jealous of you, I would love to visit Pompeii and Hurculaneun one day.
    John

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  3. Oliver, glad you enjoyed the visit. I'm quite jealous as we never made it to Herculaneum but will make even more effort to do so on your recommendation. Sorry that you found Naples Museum disappointing - if you are in the area again, revisit it because the mosaics and Etruscan collections are well worth seeing.

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