God is our refuge and strength,
    always ready to help in times of trouble.
 So we will not fear when earthquakes come
    and the mountains crumble into the sea.
 Let the oceans roar and foam.
    Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge! – Psalm 46:1-3

Today’s post presents the same challenge as the day we actually visited both Pompeii and Vesuvius: How do I possibly do justice to both the city and the mountain in one post? Well, I may not. We’ll see how it goes.

Riding the bus and using a guide was one smart move; another was spending the previous morning among Pompeii’s treasures at the museum in Naples. Additionally, Rebekah and I invested in extensive research and we read several guide books ahead of time.

You have to understand, we’re that kind of family. Our children still talk about the summer we watched the entire Ken Burns “Civil War” documentary series before a three-week bicycle-riding vacation around the battlefields. That’s just how we roll.

POMPEII: Vesuvius dominates the landscape the entire drive down from Napoli. Then, unexpectedly – just a few turns after pulling off the autostrada – suddenly you are there.

For Rebekah and me, walking through the turnstiles and into the archeological site was like stepping through a fissure in time. We were tourists, yes, listening intently to the stories told by our guide, but we were also visitors, guests of the inhabitants of a bustling city in the days leading up to August 24, AD 79. We could sense the pulse of life that animated Pompeii; and – looking up over the forum to Vesuvius beyond – we could also sense the sudden loss that froze everything, including life itself, in that catastrophic moment and created the perfect time-capsule we can experience today.

We could sense the pulse of life that animated Pompeii; and – looking up over the forum to Vesuvius beyond – we could also sense the sudden loss that froze everything, including life itself, in that catastrophic moment and created the perfect time-capsule we can experience today.

So it was with the kind of reverential respect you give a gravesite that we walked through to the place where gladiators would say, “We who are going to die today salute you.” And I wondered if anyone else was that prepared for their fate when they first glanced up and saw the mountain begin to heave and bellow smoke. I wonder if any of us own that sense of eternity, or if we simply meander through our lives unconnected from the duality of mortality and spirituality that inhabits us all?

I wonder if any of us own that sense of eternity, or if we simply meander through our lives unconnected from the duality of mortality and spirituality that inhabits us all?

LIFE: Most compelling in Pompeii is the fact of daily, mundane, life. The drinking fountain; the pizza oven; the storefronts; the gardens; the fast-food windows; the wagon-wheel ruts; the deep stepping-stones (see Rebekah with the guide, above). Stepping stones because – despite so many conveniences, including a ready supply of water – the effluence always ended up flowing down the streets.

Life in Pompeii, our guide told us at the baths, stopped every single day for a long siesta. “Everyone,” he said, “hung out at the spa on a daily basis.”

I asked if that “everyone” included the servants and the slaves who were working hard to keep the city running? So the answer was corrected, and it turns out that the “trickle down economy” of the ancient Roman world was much like today’s, and what really trickled down required the use of those stepping-stones in the street.

HAPPILY EXHAUSTED: By the time we completed our tour we’d only seen a small slice of one of the world’s most amazing active archeological sites.

But the story was unfolding; and isn’t that one of the great blessings of travel? To learn the stories that have shaped, the stories that are shaping, this beautiful world? Tomorrow I’ll take you up Vesuvius, to the mouth of the mountain that buried Pompeii; we’ll look into the caldera, marvel at the views, and we will wonder some more. – DEREK

More sample pictures: