Herculaneum & Virtual Archaeological Museum

 

Walking down the cobblestone hill of death on our last day in Naples took us on a whole new adventure. Our host had a simplified map to show us how to navigate the area in walking distance, will restaurants and such marked on it. However, his idea of going straight down a street was not our idea of straight. There are a lot of turns and T intersections and roads are not always marked. We figured that as long as we kept heading towards the water, we would do OK. 

My one stipulation was that I was NOT walking back up the hill! We would take a taxi back at the end of the day. (refer to post about how Naples tried to kill me!)

The morning was fantastic. We stumbled across the Virtual Archaeological Museum. They started us off with the typical 15 minute movie about Vesuvius, but in 3D, which was cool. The film was narrated by the volcano and also include the letter by Pliny the Elder. 

Model of Pompeii

The museum gallery was an amazing collection of interactive, high tech exhibits. You could walk through Pompeii, as it was, on a screen that was similar to wearing a Virtual Reality headset, but without the headset. They managed to match faces on statues and portraits to the names of citizens. There was also a diorama of the city. It was definitely worth the stop! Plus there was wifi (the B&B wifi wasn't working and we had to check into our flight in the morning) and cappuccino!

Leaving the museum, we wandered another block or two and ran right into the ruins of Hurculaneum. Smack dab in the middle of the city. As amazing as Pompeii was, touring Hurculaneum is jaw dropping. The city was buried by ash, so the mosaics on the floors and the frescos painted on the walls are much more intact. There are wooden lintels across doorways and wooden staircases still in place.

Touring Hurculaneum is much more relaxed, everyone wanders through at their own pace, without a wall of people pushing you through. There is also no set route to follow, just wander the streets as the mood strikes.

The more relaxed pace and smaller crowds made it a lot easier to study the mosaics or artifacts and get pictures. In Pompeii, for some of the really impressive sites, when it was your turn at the front, you just point and shoot - hoping you can get a good look later with the picture.

Leif and Saga had many more opportunities to participate in this tour!

Checking out the soup of the day! I could totally go for a kitchen counter like that!