May 30

This morning was Pompei. We took a chartered bus and were accompanied by Elena, a previous student of the Denza and daughter of the President of Napoli Posillipo Rotary Club, and members of the Breschia Rotary Club (near Milano) to Pompei.

We arrived at the Pompei ruins and were immediately struck by the size of a tourist attraction it really was: shops were all set up in the parking lot, vendors were trying to sell us water and hats right literally on the entrance steps. It was a much different experience than we had at Ercolano (which was very organized but not really tourist-y) and Stabiae.

Pompei had everything you would expect in an ancient Roman ruin: a temple in the main square, a temple to honor Apollo, a house with a garden atrium, roads with cart marks, and Mt. Vesuvius as the backdrop. It also, however, had some other things: a brothel where we learned that the pricier employees were upstairs, pornographic murals/iconography on several walls, a barber shop (Jason and Nick’s hair had them desperately hoping to stumble upon a time machine to patronize this shop but, alas, none were found) and 2-feet tall stones in the road for pedestrians to cross safely without stepping in the waste and sewage that would flow down the road.

Also, and luckily, the sea was closeby that the residents could use for fishing and as escape from Vesuvius’ eruptions.

After Pompei – which could easily take an entire day to get through the whole place, it’s massive – we headed to a Catholic church, which happened to be in the middle of a wedding ceremony. It was immense and ornately decorated.

Next up was lunch with Amadeo (the Club president) and the Napoli Posillipo club. As usual, we had a fine feast and headed back to the bus for the Denza. We got back to our rooms at around 5:00 and chilled out for a bit before we had dinner with another, very friendly Rotary Club. Before we went to dinner, we gave Bruce some gifts and he headed to dinner with Sergio.