Marco's Pompeii (part two)

Before entering Pompeii I think we all might have expected to be a little bored. This site dates back as early as 8th century BC and the date of the Vesuvias erruption that froze Pompeii in time is 79AD. I mean, just how much excitement can we expect when walking miles through this ancient civilization that is sure to start looking the same after about the first ten minutes? Umm...enter Marco. Marco is our Pompeii guide that is best described by Carmen as "delicious." She's right. He's got every female swooning, from Madelyn all the way up the chain and all of the guys feeling defeated, before we ever get started. If we came to Italy hoping to set our sights on the stereotypical beautiful male Italian, here he is. Marco. Marco isn't just handsome but he's also a true academic. He's got a Ph.d in some form of history but has made himself an expert in all things Pompeii. What makes him unique and Pompeii anything but boring is that he uses a "storyteller" style of talking about Pompeii while we walk. He chooses various people in our group to become the important people of Pompeii and sticks to the story throughout the whole hour and a half. We walk slowly through only one small portion of Pompeii that ends up being two miles in total. One of our first stops is at an amphitheater area where Gay and Dennis showed us just how amazing the acoustics are by singing Amazing Grace together. I am sure they will never forget it, as none of us will. We continue to walk in and out of structures to see frescoe's, examples of advanced architectural elements. At one point the adults went in to the "brothel" area with Marco while the kids stayed with me and played in a drinking fountain that is still fed by a spring and carried by an aqueduct that was used by the people of Pompeii. They were giggling, splashing and then played a bit of hide and seek in the walls of Pompeii. It was really joyful for me to watch them play and every minute was a picture. We went to a big open area that was surely a courtyard for public events. It's now a grassy knoll of sort and we continued to enjoy photo ops and listen to our dreamy Marco. It's clear that Marco loves Pompeii because of the stories he so passionately tells, but he also stops to point out where vandals have carved their names into walls with stories like "Mario was here." He's quick to call them "stupid" and shakes his head at the lack of respect. Of course we agree, but luckily the vandalism is sparse and he has to point it out for us to really notice. Pompeii is so huge that there is no way it can all be gaurded, thus making it vulnerable to these people with lack of moral judgement. We ended our tour by looking at an area of cataloged items excavated from the area, such as statuettes and vases, urns, etc. It was sad to say goodbye to Marco and Pompeii was certainly bigger "wow" than we thought. We capped the day by enjoying some lemon and orange juice before hopping the bus to Sorrento.