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Showing posts from August 31, 2008

POMPEII............ Dead City, thriving

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In 79 AD, an angry Mt. Vesuvius barbecued the city for breakfast, leaving behind a deathly silence that lasted nearly a millenium . Today, thousands swarm its lanes and city squares trying to connect with the vanished people. Its not difficult , for they left behind imprints of themselves that neither the volcanic wrath of a forgotten god nor almighty Time could erase completely. The hot volcanic ash proved to be a superlative preservative that has frozen forever that last day in the life of a thriving, rocking city. What a feisty lot those old pompeians were ! First lessons first. There's a Pompei and a Pompeii. The single i -d name denotes an ancient commune consisting of many cities and towns, among them this Pompeii and Herculaneum, both of which were destroyed in that volcanic eruption. There's modern day suburb named Pompei , functioning like any small town in the Naples- Compania Region, but "Pompeii" , the tourist at