A Day in Pompeii

By DANIEL WINSTON GATTO | Junior Reporter

Early start, 7 am, we all piled into a Mercedes passenger van, destined for the Amalfi coast. On the way there, we drove by sunflower farms, castle ruins, and through long tunnels, some as long as five miles.

Finally we arrived on the Amalfi coast but I was confused, all the street names were very familiar to me. I saw Capri, Corsica, Sorrento and Napoli. Did they copy all of the names from the Palisades?

As we stopped the car we heard a marching band that was fast approaching. I looked and it was a parade coming down from the street above! This was the second parade that had appeared right after we had arrived at our destination, the first one was in Florence!

I was standing next to my Aunt Lorraine when all of a sudden, I saw my father dancing behind the parade with the band. It was very funny.

As we watched them slowly disappear down the long windy street, the streets immediately filled back up with people and became very crowded once again. As we strolled, we noticed tons of beautiful shops filled with clothing, pottery and other knick knacks. We stopped in a few stores to get out of the intense heat.

After we had shopped our fill, it was time for lunch. The driver drove us to the top of Positano to an incredibly scenic restaurant overlooking the cove. The food there was very delicious but my grandmother kept offering me parts of her food, as grandmothers do. I have to admit the fried zucchini blossoms were fantastic. After lunch, we all piled back into the van and started heading to Pompeii.

As we drove, we knew we were going to the right place as we could see Mount Vesuvius looming in the background. Mesmerized, I watched this dark cloud stand over the volcano while Granny Flo recounted the history of the eruption. It was hard to imagine that a mountain that beautiful could cause that much destruction back in 79 AD.

We met our guide and then started our private tour. It was so hot we needed umbrellas to withstand the heat.

As we were walking around the actual ruins, I saw that many of the destroyed buildings didn’t have roofs to them. This was because when the immense amount of ash hit the buildings, it started burning through the roofs and seeping into the buildings, burying everything inside and becoming a makeshift sarcophagus.

Many of the still standing buildings had vividly colored murals and art on the walls in the form of mosaics. They were depicting scenes of everyday events and religious images.

In the bathhouse there was a stray dog sleeping in the corner. I really wanted to pet it because it was very cute but my Aunt Lorraine said not to because it might bite me. I was really surprised by the bathhouse because our guide showed us that it not only had running water, but it also had hot water and a filtration system.

I was very excited when I saw the amphitheater that Pink Floyd used to record their legendary 1972 film that I had watched on the plane. Our guide asked us if it was ok to go through the “red light district” and we said it was okay. As we were walking we saw numerous ancient brothels. We knew they were brothels because they had a symbol of a snake outside.

One thing I thought was fascinating was the plaster casts of the people who were trapped by the ash and gasses. Seeing the casts of the bodies was very sad but also important because it taught us more about what had happened here nearly 2,000 years ago. It seemed as if they were frozen in time in the exact pose that they succumbed to the ash and poisonous fumes.

It was a great day but it was hard to believe that this entire city, all 163 acres, was covered in ash and earth. For reference, that’s more than twice the size of Marina Del Rey.

Unfortunately when we got back to the hotel, my dad was affected by the heat and got heat stroke. He sacrificed himself so we could use his umbrella but I guess he needed the umbrella more than we did.

Somehow after a nap, he recovered. I know this because he sent me a picture of him eating pizza with his girlfriend in a sidewalk cafe in Rome. My dad is indestructible, and so are the memories we had in Italy.