- There is a major sweat spot
on Christopher's tummy right now.
- Always
- Like this whole trip has just been there's
like a stain of Dunkin right here.
- It's mostly Christopher.
It's not Duncan, don't blame the baby.
(upbeat music)
- Good morning everyone. Right? Is it a good morning?
Yes. Welcome to our series on Italy.
Today, we are taking a day trip
away from Rome, and we are going to Pompeii.
Do you want to go to Pompeii?
Pompeii is a place that had a big natural disaster,
which was really sad for the people that lived there,
but preserved the city in a way that allows us
to study the history of it in a really interesting,
cool way.
We are working with Live Italy today which
is a tour company that goes all over Italy
and can show you all sorts of stuff if you ever plan a trip
to Italy. They can help you out.
They're giving us this tour today.
You like Italy?
Yeah. You've been having fun on this trip?
Yeah. He's been growing up so much this trip.
He started walking. He started talking a lot more.
(upbeat music)
On our way to Pompeii, we stopped in Naples
which is the birthplace of modern pizza.
We're at a place called Aqualina, that place.
We're gonna eat some pizza,
and we're up here against the water.
I can't believe how beautiful it is here.
- [Dad] Are you excited about pizza?
- Yeah. I'm gonna get cheese.
- [Dad] Cheese?
- Yeah.
- [Dad] Sounds good. Do you want pizza? You do? Good.
- One great thing about this place
is that they have gluten-free pizza and pasta.
- [Mom] You're about to have your first Italian pizza.
Want to tell them what you ordered for the toppings?
- Shrimp and squid and octopus and tomato sauce
and cheese. Why does she get squid?
Like, I don't know, I know I would never do that.
Tomato, cherry tomatoes, squid, octopus, prawns, seafood.
- [Mom] Bailey is going big.
(dramatic suspenseful music)
(mom laughing)
- [Mom] It's really good. It's gonna be delicious.
(daughter mumbling)
_ [Mom] Parker, you know when we have calamari?
- Yeah.
- [Mom] That's squid.
(dramatic music)
(mom laughing)
- [Mom] Is that his mind being blown?
(son shouts)
- I'm trying to get the stuff out of the shells.
- [Brother] I can help.
- [Mom] How's your pizza Duncan?
How's it Bailey?
- Mmmm. It's amazing.
- [Mom] Parker, did you eat the squid?
- Mm Hmm.
- [Mom] Was it pretty good?
Would you order squid now?
(upbeat music)
- So the motto of Live Italy Tours
is "Don't just visit Italy. Live it."
And Jacob is perfectly modeling that at the moment.
- [Mom] What is your shirt covered in?
- Pizza.
- [Mom] Nice.
- Not just pizza, sauce. It's pizza sauce.
- [Mom] Here's the kitchen in action. Hello!
- Hello.
- That pizza was so good.
I had olives and tomatoes and capers and some sort
of vegetable that I couldn't recognize,
but tasted really good.
So my pizza was really good.
- [Dad] How was your pizza?
- Good.
- Food was awesome. It's really, really neat here.
It's just like very hot, but it's a very cozy, warm feeling.
I want to get in that ocean. I want to come back
and dedicate my life to the ocean.
- And Bailey ate most of the ocean.
- [Dad] How was it? Was it delicious?
- Yeah, it's the best.
- [Dad] The best?
- The best pizza she's ever had.
She's had a lot of pizza too.
(upbeat music)
- So originally, this was the coastline right here,
and now it's a kilometer back behind us,
is where the ocean starts.
But they used to dock ships right here
in front of the city gate which is this thing behind me.
(upbeat music)
- So apparently, this entire area was under twenty feet
of ash, pumice, and stuff that the volcano dropped.
- This museum in Pompeii is all artifacts from one house,
and it's a house of a merchant, who was very wealthy
and we can see a lot of things
that's lasted because we have bronze
and marble and frescoes.
They call this house the house
of the golden bracelet because of this bracelet.
It's gorgeous isn't it?
This next part is hard to look at.
These are the actual plaster casts of the bodies
of humans who died in 79 AD from this volcanic eruption.
It's what makes Pompeii so incredible,
that we have preservation of the people and their figures.
This is a family and their children.
So if this bothers you,
fast-forward through that time if you don't want
to see this.
But this is historical, and it's really, really amazing.
But it is hard to look at.
(somber music)
- [Dad] Let's talk about how these were made.
When Mt. Vesuvius erupted, it shot tephra,
or volcanic material 21 miles into the air.
When it came down, it covered the people of Pompeii.
All the organic material of the people,
including their clothes, their muscle and skin,
all deteriorated, creating a void where the person used
to be.
And an archeologist named Giuseppe Fiorelli
injected those voids with plaster.
After the plaster hardened, they removed
all the rubble around the people,
and we were left with these plaster casts,
which show us the detail of the clothes
and the expressions of people who died
almost 2000 years ago.
- It is amazing to try to comprehend that this
is a city from 79 AD.
- [Mom] As I walk through here, all I'm trying
to do here is wrap my mind around that concept.
- This is the first time in my life I've been able
to really walk through something like this,
and I think most people would say the same thing.
You don't normally walk through an ancient city
that's preserved for 2000 years.
It's really incredible.
- Surprise!
- One thing that's super fascinating about this place
is even though it's huge and so much has been uncovered,
there's a bunch that hasn't been uncovered,
like this mound of dirt here goes back up and out,
and it's all more city that's under the ground,
that they haven't had a chance to excavate yet.
So there's even more city beyond the massive amount of city
that's here for us to check out
- [Mom] So this area here was the thermal bath area.
The lawn was like a gymnasium where they would do wrestling
and other games. And back here, were baths for the women.
And back here, was a bath for the men.
This area was a swimming pool for swimming activities,
and this area for a game similar to bowling.
This is an original roof that survived the volcanic ash
and this is the women's, sort of like, locker room
or changing room for going into the bath.
These areas would be where they kept their things.
This is where they might sit to get changed.
And they used to do graffiti on their lockers even
in those times.
So this is where the hottest bath would have been.
And the floors are really beautiful.
They're a mosaic floor.
And then over here, we have the original ceiling still
and a window.
Here, is fountain that was actually cool.
And this was the only cool water the women had in the baths
because they generally only had warm or hot water
to protect their fertility.
- [Mom] What do you think of this so far?
- It's amazing.
- [Mom] Do you want to check out the boy's bathroom?
- Yeah, and that's it. And bye.
(upbeat music)
- It's enormous. Like ginormous.
Like you have to check out this.
- [Mom] Oh my goodness, the ceiling.
And this is the cold bath.
This is where the men would have mild temperature water.
But there was a lot more damage to this area.
The ceilings didn't make it.
The floors didn't make it.
So down here, the hot air
and steam would have been circulated to rise up
and help heat the baths and keep this room nice
and toasty.
- I've always thought it really interesting
that they used to have shared baths.
Seems like kind of a fun system.
I mean obviously you had to be a little comfortable
about being naked with everybody.
But I don't know, it just seems interesting that
that was all communal.
I know some people would think it's kind of gross.
But if you looked at the beginning
- [Mom] of the women's locker room, there was an area
where you'd get off excess dirt before going into the bath,
kind of like that shower before going into the pool rule.
- So I don't know, I like it. I think it's kind of fun.
- [Dad] You going to start doing it?
- [Mom] Community bath?
- Open up a community bath?
- I feel that's what raising small children
is like most of the time anyway.
One thing that is really surprising me,
is that this place is massive.
Like you'll go down on this street.
There are shops and homes.
And then there's another street and it just keeps going.
All the way down here, and all the way down here.
It's totally a large city, and I knew that,
but I didn't think that's actually what we'd be seeing.
Like I feel like I thought we would see one
of these small blocks,
and it would be like:
"Yeah, those are the ruins of Pompeii".
But it's giant. It's just massive the lost
that must have happened here.
And it's very tragic.
We're going into one of the better preserved homes
from Pompeii and it's completely amazing already.
- [Mom] The owner of this house was the father-in-law
of the the Emporor Nero.
He was the father of Emperor Nero's second wife.
Water would come from there, would collect,
and then he would have his own private bath in there.
(upbeat music)
- [Dad] Hey buddy. Are you in Pompeii?
- So this is an area where you could buy food.
Each of these little holes in the counter
would have something like a soup
or just a massive food that you would get served,
kind of like cafeteria style.
I'm trying to think of what examples they might be eating.
I don't know. But think of the ancient version
of mac n cheese.
(upbeat music)
So if you didn't notice our desperation just then,
it is very, very hot here.
And it's just kind of been a game of finding the shade
and sitting in the shade,
and that's where we've been learning the most
from our guide, just in little spots in the shade.
And they do have them all over the place.
So it's not that bad. Like I think it was much hotter
when we went and visited Plymouth
in August a couple of years ago.
But it is definitely very hot and people around us are,
you can tell, are getting warm.
- The size of the place kind of catches you by surprise.
So like I drank all my water right away and I was like
oh, there's a lot more to see, and we're going
to be walking for a while.
- Yeah, total cobblestones,
so if you are concerned about mobility issues,
I wouldn't even do a stroller here, I don't think.
It would have to be a very all-terrain wheeled stroller,
and I think it would be a hassle.
Chris is being very, very tired from carting Duncan around
in this thing, but I also think it's kind of the only way.
There is a major sweat spot on Christopher's tummy
right now.
- Always. Like this whole trip
has just been this stain of Duncan right here.
- It's mostly Christopher, it's not Duncan.
Don't blame the baby
- [Dad] It's in a Duncan shape.
- Oh, it's Duncan shape.
- [Mom] Here's and example of some of the cobblestones.
This is kind of everywhere.
There's some sidewalks that look like this.
This is the smoother area.
And again, it's ruins,
so you're going to have things like that.
So there are smoother sidewalks that look like this
- Those smoother sidewalks are there,
and there are some ramps,
but I would say it would be very difficult.
They are trying to make it possible.
If you have a mobility issue, and it's rough for you,
then I would say that this would be,
I think, one of the harder trips that I've seen so far
in Europe
- If you enter from the back side
and don't need to go up the hill in the beginning.
And there are areas where it is smoother,
but you're going to be a lot more limited
in where you can go and where you can explore.
And this tour was all done through Live Italy Tours.
They can also get you out here to Pompeii
with a two and a half hour drive.
If I was traveling normally,
I probably would of tried to figure out
some sort of train system and would have failed.
Or I would have just given up and gone
"Nah, it's too far away".
But I love that they offer a driver
who will take you safely to a place that is two
and a half hours away and make it possible
to still have a tour guide
and still be able to visit somewhere that's so far
from this city that was the main city we were visiting.
- It would have been really hard to get out here
with all the kids.
- Really hard. It's not, at least from our perspective,
not knowing what we're doing at all.
We would have not done it.
This was cool. We were able to work with the same company
who was doing all our things in Rome,
and also be able to go to a far away city
and explore the things we really wanted to do
because I really, really wanted to see Pompeii.
And I didn't think it was ever going to be possible.
And Duncan's behind me spitting water.
- [Dad] Waste, waste.
- That's how he's keeping cool.
That's his strategy, just spewing water all over himself
and Christopher.
This giant area behind me would be the gym
of the gladiators, where the gladiators would live
and train. And then over here, this is the amphitheater
where the gladiators would have their fights.
It's similar to the Colosseum in Rome.
It is smaller, but I'm surprised to see it here.
It's amazing to see it built in a city.
I thought the Colosseum was the only place
that gladiators would go,
so I definitely learned something new today.
I learned a lot of new things,
but that stuck out as something I thought I knew,
that I was just wrong about.
And I have a new really cool fact for you.
This is actually the very first gladiator ampitheatre
that was ever built out of all these gladiator ampitheatres
that I'm just learning were built.
So here you go, even before the Colosseum,
there was this guy.
- [Parker] So we're going to the Amphitheater
- where it was covered in ashes.
- [Dad] And what did they do in here?
- Fight.
[Dad] Who would fight?
- Amphitheaters?
- [Dad] Gladiators.
- Gladiators.
(upbeat music)
(singing in loud, hard to understand voice)
- Okay, we're about to head out of Pompeii,
but I wanted to show you this map.
- [Dad] It really shows how big this city is.
This is the amphitheater we were just in
where the gladiators fight,
and these spots here, up here,
and here are still unexplored.
This is all the city. It's so big.
- We just went through the gates, and I noticed this.
I didn't see this when I was coming in.
These are "Baby Points". throughout
There are three different "Baby Points" through out
where you can take your baby and change them,
or nurse them, or just have kind
of a safe haven spot for the baby.
We didn't need it though.
It was pretty smooth sailing with Duncan today.
He did a good job.
Those plaster casts that we showed in the very beginning,
they have a whole bunch of them on display
out here in this building here and one across the courtyard,
there. And it's so heartbreaking,
because it was there people's last moment, and they're just.
It just happened so fast.
And it was such a devastating moment in history.
- Two, three.
- Hi. Let's talk about what we learned today.
We learned why someone would get squid on their pizza.
Because they're trying to eat the entire ocean.
We learned that the men's bathhouse is ginormous.
And finally, we learned that Jessica does not know
the mac n cheese equivalent of the ancients.
Thanks for watching everybody.
We'll see you next time.
(guitar music)
- We're meeting Angelo for a playdate with his kids.
Wow and the rain is coming down.
(kids yelling excitedly)
- So I thought I would risk it today, and wear my dark bra,
with a white shirt.