We stayed in Sorrento only to be close to the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, about a 45 minute drive from the hotel.  I won’t go into all of the details of the sites and the photos — I doubt that I even could.  But one huge takaway for me was the visibility and vibrancy of the past. One community built on top of the ruins of another.

Herculaneum was destroyed mostly by an earthquake in 62 AD while Pompeii was wiped out by the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius less than 20 years later.  Herculaneum had been a fairly upscale residential community with homes showing spaces that can be identified as bedrooms, dining rooms and kitchens.  We saw a sign advertising differentt varieties of wines represented by amphoras of different shapes.  Pompeii had been a large commercial center with many public spaces preserved —temples, theaters a large market square.  Even a red light district where frescoes illustrated the various services available. Places gouged out in stone  for parking your animal in front of a shop, grooves in the streets for wagon wheels — rows of shops where a half-destroyed ladder to a partial second floor indicated that many merchants lived above their businesses –these physical remnants brought the details of life there alive.  Gyms, saunas —everything we consider part and parcel of our own lives were part of the communities.  I’ll let the pictures do the talking —both Herculaneum and Pompeii are truly remarkable sites forging real connections to the past.