Day 17 - Paestum II

Today was our last day of actually going around visiting sites and learning about different architectural styles. We went to the ancient city ruins of Pompeii and ancient Greek temples at Paestum.

We started off with a good breakfast at 8am and got on the bus right afterwards. We had a nice hour and a half ride to Pompeii. Once there, we bought our lunches outside the ruins, so we would not have to take a very long break for lunch. We were able to walk around the streets of this ancient city and see all the remains that are still there from when it was covered in ash from a volcano explosion. Quite a bit of it was well preserved because of this and there is still more that could be excavated today. We were able to go around and see kind of how the city would be set up and how the transportation worked. The wheel ruts from the carts that would haul things around the city were extremely visible in most places. It was a completely different experience than most of the other places that we have visited because we could actually walk through the town and get a feel for how it would be to live there and walk around to the different places they had. We could see some well preserved shops that would have been used as restaurants, some theaters, plenty of residences, and many other places. 

There was also an exhibit that had the bones of some of the poor people who died from either the heat or the ash from the volcanic eruption. They had been preserved by an archeologist by using plaster, so most of them is covered in plaster, but you can still see some of the bones. There were also some mosaic/tile floor decorations that were preserved that were pretty cool to see. One of the more interesting things about the city was that you could see how cheap the people actually were there (more cost effective? however you want to look at it). They built a lot of their columns out of masonry and then added a marble covering or finish to the outside of them. I suppose this is like today when we take precast concrete and cover then panels with brick to give it a masonry look when it actually isn’t.

We also got to see some amphitheaters and coliseum areas that were still preserved as well. Most of the seating for the theaters was still in good shape, but the coliseum’s seating was mostly gone. All of them were still interesting to see, and some of us were thinking that if something happened and down the road people were visiting somewhere in the United States, it could be like walking through Memorial Stadium. We also listened to a couple of presentations on the city and the aqueducts and those were both pretty interesting. After we finished up visiting Pompeii, we left to go back to Paestum and see the ancient Greek temples there.

In Paestum, there was an ancient Greek city that has 3 remaining temples and mostly just a little rubble for the rest of the town. The temples were pretty cool to see and Nate did his presentation on them so we got to learn about the history of them. Originally they were thought to be Roman temples, so there was some confusion on what was what. They were built by the Greeks, but then the Romans came in and conquered them, and then there was some evidence that they could have been converted to Christian churches before they were abandoned. 

These were quite large, some of the largest ancient structures with giant pillars that we got to see, and I thought they were a neat thing to see as the last major part of this trip. Then we were able to go visit a museum of artifacts and pieces of the buildings from the town that they could not leave out in the ruins. There were quite a few pots, some coins, and statues. Then we left our last place we were visiting for class.

We headed back to the hotel/farmhouse place and decided it was time to blow off some steam in the pool they had there. The water was nice and cold to start off, but then we started up some kind of water polo game with the soccer ball our bus driver gave us. We all got pretty physical and were pushing each other around and having a good time. Since we haven’t been able to keep as hydrated as we should, a few of us got calf cramps which aren’t exactly fun, but we just got back in and kept going after it went away. It was fun to just play around in the pool and get some physical activity besides walking a million miles every day. Haha! Then we had our last group dinner together and since this farmhouse place makes their own cheese from the water buffalos they have everything with it was amazing. They had some really good lasagna that I wish I could have had about 10 servings of. Then we had a time with everyone to just share stories, highlights, lowlights, and just whatever came to mind about the trip. It was fun to hear some stories that I hadn’t completely heard before, and listen again to some of the best of them. Then I headed off to bed because we are leaving nice and early tomorrow to get back to Rome to complete our journey.