The city of Pompeii was created and developed by an Emperor for his wide as she wanted luxury and lovely things in her life. He had craftsmen and architects brought in to teach the slaves and other city dwellers how to build the most amazing and highly technical accomplishments.
In the city were baths, temples, running clean water to all street fountains and the city baths, shops, luxury homes and even a red light district where women and children were not permitted.
At this time the population of Pompeii had no idea that the mountain just behind them was a volcano, just a big mountain, until the year 79 AD when it erupted and completely covered Pompeii. It was an important place at the time due to the navigable river it was on and that it was center to all of the European trade routes.
On eruption day, not only did all Pompeiins die but so did all the friends, families and helpers who saw the eruption and went to help out. Those who tried to help died in 18 min from the poisonous gases.
In all, about 70 000 people died.
G and I walked, or rather, bent over, we trudged the extra 400 meter height to the very top, along a volcanic crusted and crumbled pathway which switchbacked along the actual side of the volcano. We were able to walk almost the entire circumference of the volcano but all the views were the same so we headed back down. G walked down slowly cuz of his knee but I decided to let what gravity has already started doing to me so I headed down at a run letting the earth drag me along the path.
Pompeii, the stop at the bottom, is an amazing place where streets with symbols for names, walls and roads, carved ovens and doorways with painted walls and pictures are all still there to view. It was tricky walking around as nothing has been changed and it showed great mastery of thought and ingenuity and a careful ability in planning.
Dug up over time and on view are some of the corpses that were gassed and then covered in lava plus all the pottery, tools and statues. In 1972, the whole area was noted as a National Park to help preserve the mountain and now it is illegal to build or plant anywhere near or on it.
Even many years ago as people would try to climb to the top to see into the crater, they were destroying the surface and so a singer was hired to create a song that would encourage the public to take the newly built funicular up instead of walking there. This is where the song "Funiculi, Funicula" came from. As a child we used to sing it but didn't know why.
