Although the sky was overcast and gray, the weather seemed appropriate for visiting Pompeii. One of the benefits of touring in December and January is that we did not have to fight the crowds (I had heard horror tales of how bad Pompeii can be in the summer).

Upon entry through the city gates, one's first view is of the main plaza, the Forum, originally lined with temples. As the photos at left show, Vesuvius always seems to loom on the horizon. I didn't realize that Pompeii was ringed by other mountains as well.

Walking through the forum and the archways at the end, one comes upon the residential areas of the city. Along the way, you pass many grisly reminders of what happened.

As gruesome as the preserved corpse shells were, I was really bothered by the poor dog, it seems to be in such misery.

Thankfully, in Italy Tom seemed to rediscover his vaunted map reading skills (as opposed to our London trip), even without his trusty compass!

There was a large number of identifiable buildings scattered throughout the site, such as the bakery (to the right) and the baths (below).

That is a restaurant (hot table!) to the right, with placeholders for the pots of food; below is a typical street scene with chariot ruts.

There were more than a couple of brothels, complete with built-in bed (above) and graffiti (right).

Walking down one of the main streets, Abondanza, led us past many beautiful villas, complete with remaining artwork and restored gardens. At the end of the street we found the ampitheatre, which supposedly held 20,000 spectators and was the first built in the Roman empire (before the Colosseum).