CAT Global Travelers in Pompeii

Noon, 24 August 79 C.E.: Pompeians felt tremors and saw the volcanic column rise above Mt. Vesuvius. They sheltered themselves as the northwest wind rained down ash and lapilli. 1:00 p.m.: A cloud of black ash blotted out the sun. The earth shook, the market emptied as the sellers ran back to their farms in Terzigno. A strong wind blew from the northwest. 3:00 p.m.: All over town, roofs caved in. Citizens of nearby Herculaneum stared in horror at a volcanic column rising from Vesuvius.

6:00 p.m The volcano seemed calmer. Was the bombardment over? Pompeii’s survivors came out, looked around and knew that escape by sea was futile. They tried to escape to the southern edges of the city.

1:00 a.m. 25 August: The volcanic column above Vesuvius collapsed and extinguished everyone in Herculaneum.

7:30 a.m.: The third pyroclastic surge hit Pompeii and buried the city completely.

9:00 a.m., 10 March, on Naples-Pompeii train: We shared tales of our one free day in Rome. Nick dropped into a church with his name on it, Saint Silvestro. He bought enough pasta and olive oil to fill a second rolling yellow suitcase to carry it home. Celeste, Nastasha , and Cesar rowed on the lake in Piccio Park. They spent hours searching for a museum. They finally found an empty building__ the Pasta Museum had lost its lease. Ever in search of new places to photograph, in Travestere, Tom McGimm found the famous flea market “like the Meadowlands.” Ross Baker, Marysol Villegas, Kelly Rivera, and Stephanie Rivera captured the best views of Rome from the pope’s old stronghold, Castel Santangelo.

10: 00 a.m, About to pass under grafitti-covered overpass, Fatima Cantos snaps the first picture of Mt. Vesuvius. Clouds gather around the base of the volcano. The weather is threatening.

10:00 a.m, 10 March, Pompeii: Gripping mugs of cocoa and coffee, eating pizza and astonished by enormous dangling lemons, we huddle under a heat lamp in a restaurant tent outside the archeological site. Six days of travel in Italy, five of them rainy. A cloud bursts as we meet our guide, Antonella.

We shelter under umbrellas and 5-Euro plastic sheets and race an enormous German tour to the entrance. We win. We watch our feet to keep from sliding on the polished black tufa stones the Romans set down 2000 years ago. As the rain pours down the streets. Antonella compliments the Romans, “They opened their fountains every night to wash the filth out of town.”

Noon, 2007: We admire the Roman baths. Covered by an ornamented dome, statues hold up the ceiling, lockers set in the walls, floors heated by underground pipes__ but not today! The warning on a mosaic floor reads, Beware the dog!

1:00 p.m.: The brothels had hard stone beds and a pornographic menu of activities. We ponder Roman morality: prostitutes were considered beasts or female wolves, not human, so visiting them did not count as adultery. “How did a decent Pompeian man out for a sexual encounter know that he was on the right street,” Antonella asks. We all shrug. “Easy, she says, “The howling of the wolves!”

2:00 p.m.: How can we look at this man captured in his death throes, now caught in plaster and displayed under glass? We snap pictures but debate about tourism and whether there are limits to curiosity. “How about the popes in Saint Peters, also under glass? They were so blessed that they never decayed. Should we stare at them and take pictures?”

3:00 p.m. The sun breaks through as we walk uphill to an paleobotanist’s authentic replanted garden of boxwoods, with a little faun greeting us. We splash through puddles on the original, red and green marble floors that managed to survive. We picture ourselves reclining and eating with the wealthy vacationers in the dining room with its mosaic floor showing Alexander the Great defeating the Persians.

4:30: Head back to Naples train station and the return to Rome.