Out of Roma and on to the coast

19 May
We left Roma today and headed to the western Mediterranean coast of Italy.  Our first stop was at Abbey of Monte Cassino, which is a site of a historical bombardment and battle during the Italian campaign of WWII.  In April 1944 the Allies bombarded the Abbey thinking that it was a Germany ammunition stronghold.  Unfortunately this was not the case and the Germans were hiding in the local hills.  The Abbey was over 90 percent demolished and has since been rebuilt by the Gregorian Monks to use as a religious retreat and functioning abbey/tourist site.  Allies came from Poland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, UK and USA.  There is a separate Polish cemetary, as well as a UK cemetary, the US cemetary wasn't accessible by motorcoach.

We then headed to Pompei to see the ancient city.  Mount Vesuvius errupted in 79 AD.  Pompei started off as a fishing village and over a 600 year period it became a major port and city in the Roman Empire.  When the volcanoe errupted, over 30 feet of ash and cinder buried the city in a period of 3 days.  It is estimated that over 20,000 people lived in the city, and about 4000 died due to non-evacutation.  Today the ancient site is 3 km from the Med, to give you an idea of the amount of land that was created as a result of Vesuvius' erruption.  The ancient city of Pompei wasn't discovered until the 1700s, when farmers started to dig up a few artifacts while clearing land.  Today it is estimated that 2/3 of the city has been excavated.  The remaining 1/3 will get done when the government allocates money to the project, or when a rich benefactor decides it's worthwhile enough to fund the digging.

Our guide, Ernesto, provided us with a lot of information and numbers.  So here goes:
-- population 25,000 with over 10 to 20 percent slaves, in 79 AD..  Slaves were a result of the judicial system or birth.  Criminals were sentence to be slaves and performed the worst tasks for the city, such as sewage detail.
-- city had 4 public bath houses and was renown as a for training gladiators.
-- 4 public water fountains, which provided fresh water from the mountains 60 km away, through lead pipes.  Lead poisoning was the most common ailment in the Roman Empire.  Some houses had water directly to the house, these homes were of the upper upper class and the pipes were lead.  Lead was used, because it was an easy metal to work with.  The latin word for lead was  plumb, hence the term plumber, or one who works with lead and water.
-- There were 25 brothels and this was determined by the erotic frescos painted on the walls that were still intact.  Our guide told us that sex was considered a routine pleasure and the cost of a roll on the stone (the beds were stone with a cushion or towels on top) was either a glass of wine or some sort of food for services rendered.  They also didn't seem to mind same sex activities, as seen in a couple of frescos, which was also practiced through out the Roman Empire.
-- 2 theaters, one for comedy and dramatic plays, the other was acoustically designed for music performances.
-- the largest building was the judicial center.  Judges were elected from the ruling class and served terms that required periodic re-election.  The city also had a person who functioned sort of like a mayor and there were several high class or ruling class families.

From Pompei we drove on to Sorrento, which is on the west Mediterranean coast.  Tomorrow we'll be doing an Almafi drive and having a special local Sorrento meal, that promises to have a lot of different seafood.