The Purple Penguin

Up early to head into Pompeii. Had breakfast at the hotel; the view from that cafe is amazing over the ruins and Vesuvius, especially in the morning with the sun rising onto the mountain. The hotel is right at the Amphitheatre entrance so we were early to the gate, but it wasn’t a long wait. We did learn however, that with a My Pompeii ticket you still need to go to the ticket office and pick up your ticket for the day.

We went into the amphitheatre, you can go in the ground level but not into the audience stands, then headed into the city. Around the amphitheatre the street/walking areas are flat and gravel, but into the city proper and it’s large stones and very uneven. A bit difficult to walk (https://seepompeii.com/en/the-characteristic-streets-of-ancient-pompeii/) and we were glad we had walking sticks.

Of course I headed for the theatre area (we were sort of heading that way to see if we could get to the forum early, but decided to slow down). The large theatre is spectacular, though we didn’t see the small one, instead continuing on to the forum. We walked all over seeing lots of frescos and mosaics (including the Cave Canem) and out to the Villa of Mysteries (that room is amazing and the rest of the villa is lovely). However, it is a slope down to the villas along the old Roman road and the mausoleums, so it was a climb back up to the Porta Ecrolano (and you have to show your ticket to go through the gate down to see the villas).

We then went to one of the main streets through Pompeii (Via Dell’Abbondanza) stopping at the shops and Joe was checking the light to see if the sun would set shining down the street. It seemed to be slightly off though and we were tired with very sore feet so headed back to the hotel. That was about 6 hours of walking though! I had also noticed a lot of people walking around with maps of the city and was wondering where they got them as I hadn’t seen one at the entrance. I was worried we’d have to go to the main entrance to find one, but nope, they were at the Amphitheatre entrance, just hidden back at the guard hut just past the turnstile entrance. So I grabbed one for the following day.

December is the quiet season and they do mean quiet. There were several large school groups, but for the most part it wasn’t crowded at all. When the school groups went through we could avoid them pretty much (it is a city) and we didn’t have any queues. Well, at most one person in front of us? But on the down side, it’s also when a lot of work is being done so things are closed, both in the ruins and the town. There was also roadworks and work being done on the hotel.

We were so tired we had dinner at the hotel again and it was excellent but still too full for pudding!