Lets Dig a Hole!

This past weekend was my last travel weekend...can you believe it because i really cannot. Well i guess not my last last because when Mom, Jen, and Dad come out i will be taking them around to do a bit of traveling! So i am Not at the end of my Italy experience yet :) One of the things i have found to be really fascinating about Italy is that the majority of its history and art is found underground. All over Italy, someone one day started to dig a hole and found a city!

Friday I left on a class trip bright and early in the morning. We had had a good night the night before celebrating a friends b-day so the 6:00am wake up was not fun, but the train ride to Rome made for a good nap. The class is called Ancient Art and Society: Etruscan and Roman, and is taught by Professor Ewell. P. Ewell is one of the best Professors i have ever had! He looks a lot like Santa: i am not sure if i think that just because it is so close to Christmas, but he has a bowl full of jelly for a stomach and a deep kind voice. He is brilliant and took us all around Ancient Rome that is intermixed with current Rome (Dad: i got this sweet book that shows pictures of what Rome looked like then and what it looks like now, and i can make up for all of the info i lacked when we went to Rome). It was a long day, it rained a lot, then was supper sunny, and we saw a ton of Ancient Rome: Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, Domus Aurea, Colosseum, Basilica pf San Clemente, Imperial Fora, Capitoline Hill, Theater of Marcellus, Campus Martius, Largo Argentina, Are Pacis, and - my favorite - the Pantheon. The Theater of Marcellus is a famous theater that was built in honor of Ceaser Augustus's nephew who he wanted to be the next emperor (but Julia, Augustus's wife, poisoned Marcellus because she wanted her son from a different marriage to be emperor next). The theater was later turned in to a palace and is now today broken up into 15 apartments. If i ever live in Rome i will live in one of these apartments! The Basilica of San Clemente is a church built on top of a house built on top of a church. You can go down 60 feet and be in the 1st Century! Rome is amazing and has so many stories on its surface and below: so much history its not even funny! That may have been my last trip to Rome for a while but i think i got the best of it the times that i was there, and enjoyed every inch of it.
Saturday we made our way to the Bay of Naples, where our first stop was Pompeii. Pompeii is one of those many cities that was found because someone somewhere dug a hole and found a city! Mount Vesuvius blew its top in 79 AD and covered the surrounding cities, including Pompeii with ash: so much ash that the city was lost for literally 1,000's of years! The art, the homes, the food, the lives of these people who made a home so many years ago in Pompeii were almost perfectly preserved under the many feet of ash and volcanic rock. In one of the pictures you can even see a plaster cast of one of the people who was asphyxiated by the ash and gas of the volcano. Many bodies were found completely covered in ash, that had hardened around the body, then when the body decade it left an open space, the ash made a mold of the body. Plaster was pored into these open spaces and the ash chipped away leaving behind a plaster cast of the person who died. They are so detailed that some of the casts you can even see the persons dieing facial expression. It is very sad but also an amazing discovery that has helped archeologists learn about the Pompeiiens: their diet, bone structure, and life style. The architecture and art of the many homes were also found preserved. Some of the best ancient art has come from places like Pompeii and the cities surrounding Vesuvius. The Villa of the Mysteries is one of those such homes dug up. Although its funny because not all of Pompeii has been excavated. A good chunk of the city is under the current city and cannot be opened up because it would cause the current city to collapse onto it! They also have discovered the seeds of the grapes used to make wine in ancient Rome. Small vineyards have been set up in Pompeii to imitate what it would have been like back in the day. They even sell the ancient Roman wine haha.





We stayed in Sorrento that night. It is a very cute city on the coast. Actually it reminded me a lot of Palos Verdes, along the cliffs. Although that might just be because i have not seen PV in a while and i maybe sorta miss it a little ;) We watched the sun set on the Mediterranean and ate at an amazing restaurant. I'm not sure how much better it can get :)
Sunday we headed out on our purple bus for Herculaneum. Herculaneum is another city that was covered in ash and only recently discovered. When Vesuvius blew its top large gas bubbles came out and sped down the hill 100's of miles an hour wipping out the people and preserving near perfectly the wood structures of the buildings. Recently discovored means a few hundred years ago. It was dug up and pilfered. A good amount of the history was stolen and disrespected because of peoples lack of respect and knowledge of what they were finding. But the bad guys did not get it all! There is a good many statues and beautiful mosaics nicely preserved in the Archeological Museum in Naples. We also saw the Villa Oplontis which was the inspiration for the architecture and ground plan of the Getty Museum in LA. So if you want to see the basic plan of an ancient Roman villa, then go to the Getty and walk around: I know I will! The fresco's in this Villa are absolutely amazing! Some of the best preserved fresco's ever discovered. What is left is so detailed and colorful its hard to imagine the entire villa was covered with this delicate art. Arceologists have done an incredible job piecing together the millions of fragments of fresco and mosaic that had fallen off the walls during the many years the villa was underground. The pictures we see today are basically the biggest puzzles i have ever seen! The villa has 90 rooms, not all of which have been uncovered yet, a pool bigger than an Olympic size, orchards that have been replanted in the backyard, and is on what was the seashore at the time (it had an awesome ocean view). And this was just the vacation home, im not kidding! What a life! It was so much fun just strolling though the streets of an anchient city, like it was no big deal. "Oh hey, look a clothing store!" "What an awesome house." "Want to to come over to my place later, i live at number 2 Main St. Herculanium!" We all laughed when we realized how cool what we were doing was, haha.













We of course went to a Neopolitan Pizzeria while in Napoli and it was sooo good. I'm not sure how i fit the personal pizza into my stomach but i did and so did everyone else. We looked so happy and full at the end of the lunch, it was perfect! A Neopolitan pizza is really only garlic, oregano, and sauce, but i like a little mozzarella on mine. And the crust is thin, not cracker thin but thin enough so that you have to fold the slice in half so as to hold it with one hand and not let everything slip off. Oh and of course they poor olive oil all over it!

A good almost last adventure ;) I'm not done yet!

Love and Miss you all!