visit Pompeii

I’m fascinated with Pompeii, and I’m not even sure why. The rest of Italy doesn’t appeal all that much to me as a place to visit, but I really want to see these ruins. I don’t like history out of textbooks or as a bunch of dates and events. I love seeing physical history – ruins and such – where I can imagine how life used to happen there (and in the case of Pompeii, how it came to an end).

I want take a Mediterranean Cruise with someone I love where I can visit the ruins of Pompeii and specifically visit the Garden of Fugitives where I can reflect on life!

Did this as just one thing done on a round the world adventure with my wife.

seriously. Can’t afford refreshments there on an au pair’s salary. And once your in, there’s no re-entry

... since I was in 6th grade, and we spent half the year studying Greek history, culture and mythology. I stole my dad’s National Geographic that featured the archaeological digs in Pompeii, and read over and over it until the pages fell apart. I’ve dreamed since of exploring Pompeii in person.

I was making a logo for a ficticious book publishing company, and decided on the name Primavera, when I came upon a beautiful wall fresco from Pompeii with the same name. The picture is at progress stage of my logo. Then, a few weeks later a friend of mine used another fresco image for his profile on a community site, which almost seemed like the male counterpart of my Primavera, but he doesn’t remember which villa he took the photo in. So now I have a mission, and would like to see these two paintings in real life. If anyone gets lucky and makes it to Pompeii, look out for these beauties.

It was a beautiful place to visit. If anyone visits check out the old bordello, that was an interesting experience.

My mother’s family have actually done this when they were fleeing Europe after the second world war. There is a family story about my Nanna and Papa having a fight which ended when my Nanna threw one of their suitcases out of the window of the moving train. It burst opened and clothes were flung all over the station that they were passing through. My Nanna’s nightdress ended up wrapped around a porter’s head…....

Unfortunately as I was 15 at the time, I and my fellow students spent much of the day ogling the boys from the other school trips and laughing hysterically at the many phallic references in the mosaics and frescoes. Other things I remember – Naomi and Louise plaiting their hair together, and making fun of Julie behind her back. I’d like to think that next time I’d pay more attention to the history and culture surrounding me. We did, however, perform parts of various Roman plays in the amphitheatre, and that was quite educational of us, I suppose.

I’m a huge huge history buff, and I always dreamed of going to places I can only read about in history books and encyclopedias…just stand there where all these things happened and feel the place…to imagine what it must’ve been like ages and ages ago…