Naples, Pompeii, and Herculaneum

We left Rome for Naples by train, intended to use it as a base for visiting Pompeii and Herculaneum.  The hotel of ours was close to the train station of Naples.  Unfortunately Weiling felt sick the second day when we were in Naples. She stayed in the following day when Hope and I went to Pompeii without her.  But fortunately Weiling felt better and joined us to Herculaneum.  When I was in Pompeii last time, I hurt my knee and was not able to see much of the place.  This second time visit was great as more excavation was conducted and more information was available for the visitors.

Pompeii:

 Part of the city wall:

 The Forum with Mount Vesuvius in the distance:

Mount Vesuvius in the background:

 The famous dog:

 Mount Vesuvius again:

 Casa del Fauno:

 The real one in the Archaeological Museum in Naples:

These people died from choking on the think smoke.  A rather slow suffering for them.  I show this simply as a reminder for myself to respect nature and to have an appropriate perspective.

Herculaneum:
A short train ride took us from Naples to Ercolano, except we got on a wrong train and had to change trains to get on the right track.

 The main entrance:

An exhibit of "The Splendor of Ercolano" showed some exquisite jewelries recovered from the volcano covered mess : 

 Just like in Pompeii, some houses showed how rich and elite the owners of the houses were:

 The original wood that was petrified:

 Very beautiful mosaic floor of women's bath:

 Again, I show this to remind myself to respect nature and to have an appropriate perspective:  These people died quickly but horrifically as the hot lava engulfed them completely.

It is worth noting that the Archaeological Museum of Naples has a lot more beautiful frescoes recovered from Pompeii.  It is also interesting that there was an exhibit of Chinese masks from ShanXin Dui outside Chengdu.  

It is also interesting that January seems a good month to buy stuff at a nice discount in Naples.  All three of us bought scarfs, blouse, socks, etc. at a great discount right inside the Naples train station.  It was a gigantic shopping mall, by the way!