Rome via Brooklyn

630 words, 3 minutes read time – DOUBLE POST
We all got up bright and early the next day for breakfast before heading off to the Herculaneum, which was about a thirty minute train ride away. The walk from the train to the site was actually quite nice — the area was quaint and seemed like a cute little area to live in. To be fair, I’ve been romanticizing and fantasizing about staying here this entire trip, so maybe that’s just my whimsy talking.

Herculaneum was particularly hot. I found myself ducking into every little shadowed nook that I could just to shield myself from the unforgiving sun.

Once again, I found myself crying in the ruins a few times. Part of it is certainly my grief, part of it is definitely being miserable in the hot sun — but I also think that a little part if it is feeling connected with my ancestors in some way. Just writing that makes me feel so ridiculous, but it’s truly how I’m feeling.

My family can trace our lineage back in Italy for quite a few generations. At least as many that have some sort of paper trail. But as far as I know, we’ve only ever been here in this country. And I think being in these ruins and visiting all of these beautiful, historic places, I can’t help but feel like I’m being watched over in some capacity. I’m not sure how to describe this without sounding silly, so I’ll just stop here and hope you all understand me.

After lunch, I walked Pompeii on my own and I’m really glad I did. Once again, cried my eyes out — something I’ve come to expect at this point when stepping into historical spaces. One thing that surprised me on this trip is the underwhelming number of cats I’ve seen in Rome — especially since so many of the souvenirs feature cats on them. So, I was beyond pleased to see a few cats in the ruins. These three cats were the most I’d seen in any one place in Italy so far.

I took my sweet time exploring the ruins. Keeping to shaded areas as much as possible (since it was so unbelievably hot), I made sure to be present and take my time in the spaces that called to me. As I’ve talked about in many of my blog posts, there’s something really moving about walking through these ancient sites and standing where people before me once stood. We’ve seen a lot of ruins throughout this trip, but this feeling never gets old.

I didn’t realize I had visited the brothel until after we had left Pompeii and were on the train back to Rome. Though, I feel like this image being right in the entryway should have tipped me off.

As I rushed through the end of my trip, I made sure to stop by the museum all the way on the other side to see the plaster casts of the victims of Vesuvius. If there was any moment that filled me with emotion, it was certainly this one. I had so many mixed feelings. Primarily sad wondering what they must have felt like in those final moments – obviously, very scared and confused. But I also felt a bit weird knowing how many of these bodies were staged by archaeologists to create a certain narrative.

As a (hopefully) future archaeologist, I can’t help but fuss over the ethics of it all. I understand that archaeology’s beginnings were kind of a free for all, so staging and posing the remains as they did may not have been a concern at that time. However, it makes me wish that these bodies had been discovered later, or by someone else, so that they could have been treated with the integrity that they deserved.