Better Herculaneum /Ercolano Or Pompei?

You could see some photos of Herculaneum in my other posts
Pictures On The Walls In Herculaneum/ Ercolano
Vesuvius In Action
and maybe you've asked yourself, what it is?

To be very short, those are excavations of a Roman town, situated under the modern settling, dead during the same eruption of Vesuvius that burried Pompei and forgotten for centuries.
This is the look on the excavations from the access-way.

Upper level with greenery are the villas, very good conservated, middle level with pedestal are suburban baths, finally the low level are -maybe, I think so- the places where 300 sceletrons were found.

Many years ago I was in Pompei and there was practicaly nothing to admire except the walls of the town. Mosaics, pictures, staues -everything is removed and is in the museums. What is not removed is closed and you can enter inside only if you pay a guide (that is very expensive). Ercolano seemed to me much more interesting. The streets and the houses are entire, there are many paintings and other things -you have not use all your immagination to understand what it was and how these persons lived.
In this post I want to present you only general look on some streets of Herculaneum.

These 2 photos represent look in the direction of suburban baths. In fact, the black holes in the end of the streets are passes to the square you've seen on the second level of the first photo.





This other photo is a look in the direction of main street. I did not understand sincerely, why they needed that big stone on the street? To make the cars go slower?



Finally main street with pubblic water and... what you think?... Shops in every door and hole! (read my posts about Shopping In Salerno). Is it possible that the style of life did not change for 2000 years in Italy???



Read more about the art in the houses of Romans in these posts:

Pictures On The Walls In Herculaneum/ Ercolano 1
Floors If The Roman Houses 2
Decorate Your House With Bás-Reliefss And Sculpturs 3

We Visited The Crater Of Vesuvius Too

This is the long photo reportage about our visit to the crater of Vesuvius. In my precedent post Vesuvius In Action I wrote some words more about this mountain. We continue the overview of the volcanos that I began some time ago (Active Volcanos and Fuji And Vesuvio).

We had to go up the mountain with the car till the quoter of 1000 meters where we could leave the car and pay the tcket.




From that point we had to go at feet and the map says there is about 3800 m long path to walk. The path was surely not the best we've ever seen in the life. Specially we were with a little girl. But on our way we've seen very old persons, the persons with different health problems (till a broken leg!) that wanted to see the crater too.



Near the crater you can continue to walk the same path and there are touristic guides you can follow (service include in the ticket).



On the right side you see infinite world



This is the right side of the same crater



And this is the left side



There were not smokes of other activities in that moment. The only "special effect" were the stones felt from the bord of the crater and we could hear sounds they created. My brother was very afraid and wanted to turn back home from there. I have to say you, my husband NEVER went there in all the life.
-And if the eruption beginns now???
-Well, it's good, we will dey all together in the same moment like in the fables, we joked.



Read more:

What Is Infinity
Vesuvius In Action
The Ways In Italy
What Is Excellent In Italy
Около Кратера Везувия-2
Около Кратера Везувия
После Гулек
Ещё Пара Фоток
Через Перевал
А Мы Тут Гуляем
We Visited The Crater Of Vesuvius Too
Classic Life In The Mountains

Vesuvius In Action

I visited different important places of Campania/Italy with my relatives this week and wanted to dedicate some posts to these trips.

Today I show you some photos about the distructive nature of Vesuvius. If you remember, I wrote about volcanoes in the last period (Active Volcanos and Fuji And Vesuvio for example) and so with this and next posts we continue the talk about them.

I try to insert big photos in the html code, so -I hope- if you click on the photo you have to pass to the original big photo.

Well, here we are on the way to the 1000 m quote where it's possible to leave the car. From that place all visitors have to go about 4 km-s till the cratere.
Vesuvius has nothing special and is not more scary as any other mountain I've seen in my life if you see it from this place.

To turn you more close to the reality, the way is full of the modern sculptures (I'm sure I've not seen them when I was here about 10 years ago). This one specially produced great impression on me (after infinite quantity of hairpins that made me half alive half dead).

Here, on the right behind the light, you can see the level of the streets today and the wall of the volcanic ashes in the background on the left. This is the town of Herculaneum, one of the different Roman towns buried by the eruption of 79.

Here you can see it better, the wall of boiled (during eruption) ashes felt on the heads of the persons. By the way, the t° of it is 500-600°C, and human meat vaporizes by contact with it.

Finally this interesting photo. Modern life and antique town together. Only a little part of the Roman town is possible to see today, the excavations. The modern town grew on the same place where was situated forgotten Herculaneum. Nobody remembered it. There was only the story written by Plinius-jun. about a splendid port near Vesuvius that was lost under the lava during the eruption of Vesuvius. But nobody wanted beleave him. Everybody said, it was a fable...