Walking the Streets of Pompeii

Enchanting, humbling, intriguing, huge, and entirely fascinating. Many such emotions impressed my mind and heart as I discovered for the first time the archaeological sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum during a recent two and a half day trip near Naples, Italy. Pompeii, the Roman city buried under the ashes of the volcano Vesuvius in 79AD, was much bigger than I anticipated. It took me two long half-day visits to begin to appreciate the scope of the city and orient myself along the main streets and bumpy paved ways. So many remains of homes I only glanced at in passing. Some with paintings, other with mosaics, more with parts of stairways, eatery counters, pedestals, and many more details suggesting the life that was. If you look closely, you can enjoy some of those details, like shop signs, balconies, crossing stones, cartwheel marks in the stones, in this first batch of photos of Pompeii streets, starting with one showing the Vesuvius in the background.