Gelato Quest: Pompei

I went to Pompei for the day yesterday, and it has to be one of the most interesting places I have ever visited.

The city of 25,000 was buried by ash after Mt Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE. Many of the images are iconic.

Before the eruption, the gate of the city was at the ocean, but it is now some distance from the shore, in part due to the amount of ash that fell.

The roads, and many of the floors in the homes, are inlaid with white marble chips to reflect moonlight, so that people could find their way in the dark.

The eruption of Mt Vesuvius did not involve lava at Pompei, but toxic gas. People and animals died quickly, where they were, and the ash preserved them.

Many of the frescoes are in great condition.

This is part of the ceiling in one of the public baths, which were a social ritual, albeit only once a week for the wealthy and once a month for the slaves.

This is one of dozens of statues that line the upper walls of the bath, all in pretty great shape.

These fountains work.

You can drink the water that is still brought down from the mountains - I must have refilled my water bottle six times due to the heat and lack of shade.

Amazing mozaic floor.

A very early oven, nearly the same as pizza ovens in use today.

But you don't want to know about that.

You want to know bout the brothels.

So does the crowd of perverts below.

This is the place.

There were 25 brothels in Pompei (it WAS a sea port) but this is the only one that was a separate business. It had 5 beds. Most brothels were just one bed in a room over a shop.

This is how you knew you were in the right area.

Remember this was a sea port? Nobody spoke the same language, so the stores had menus with pictures - you would just point to what you want.

Same with the brothel.

There are 5 or 6 of these that survived.

Dirty, dirty, dirty!

I had someone else take this picture for me.

Let's hope there were mattresses on these beds.

So. Sailor. If you were new in town, how did you find the brothel?

There were signs, on the ground, and the bigger they were, the further away you were. As you got closer, the signs got smaller.