Salerno, Pompeii and some slippy rocks

The Campania area of Italy is approximately 1 hour south of Naples on the west coast, nestled up against the Mediterranean Sea. We left Sicily and headed north to the town of Salerno for a few days as we waited to meet up with Stephanie in Rome on the 8^th of May. Salerno is a moderate sized town with an old center. We managed to find a place in the old part of town, a nice bed and breakfast. It turned out that the place was empty leaving us with the run of the house, we didn't even see the owner for 3 days after we check in.

Our time in Salerno was pretty low key. It took us a while getting used to all the shops closing for 4 hours in the afternoon and eating at 9:30 pm at night. So we strolled during the day and ate copious amounts of pasta and pizza and drank the cheap local wine. It sounds life a real sweet time but eating pasta for every meal can old quickly!

One afternoon we decided to get on the train and head north two stops to Europe's biggest archaeological site. Found at the base of Mt. Vesuvius we spent six hours at the ruins of the ancient town of Pompeii. The site itself is massive, it was completely buried in two days following the eruption of the volcano on August 24, 79 A.D. It was very interesting to see the amount of modern day conveniences that were available 2000 years ago (eg. hot and cold running water). It makes you think of how advance the Romans were and we can't even dig a C-train tunnel through downtown Calgary, however that is a side topic to be discussed later on.

Pompeii city:
Center of Town, Volcano in the background:

Frescoes painted in the homes:

It was very cool to walk amongst the homes, theaters, stadiums, markets, baths and even brothels. Everything in the town was perfectly preserved even the bodies of the former citizens. Completely encased in pumice stone many perished in the explosion. Casts were made during the excavations giving frightening detail to events of the fateful day.

Body casts:

Neat place to visit, we recommended it but get the audio tour.

FALL DOWN REPORT

During our epic exploration session of the ruins of Pompeii we came across a stadium used for Gladiator battles and a place of death for many, much like its big brother in Rome, the Colosseum. As we exited from the playing field we had to walk up a long tunnel. The floor of the tunnel was constructed using large (1m square) blocks of basalt. 2000 years of foot traffic had smoothed the rocks over, that coupled with a light wind, a small amount of dust set the stage for a loss of footing.

We were ahead of the victim in question at the time of the event, we did not see the actual slip but we heard it. The distinctive sound of a grip less flip flop sliding across dusty smooth rocks echoed through the tunnel followed by a unnatural “UGHH”. All of the tourists turned and focused on the British man in a very ugly blue polo shirt as he was down in the crab walk position facing the other direction from his initial stride with one hand pointing to the roof as if to say, yeah it was me that just slipped. The flip flop that acted as the catalyst to the slip was approximately 2 feet on his left in good order.