We arrived in Napoli 5 days ago and for 5 days we are eating pizza, pasta, pizza, spaghetti, and pizza! We sit down for an aperitivo, an Aperol Spritz or something, which always comes with a plate of goodies: salmon sandwiches, paper thin slices of smoked tuna, salami, olives, prosciutto, cherry tomatoes, cheeses, etc. sometimes it is popcorn, chips and peanuts, sometimes it is a a tiny pizza the size of your hand palm. I love it!

And then there is all this delicious pasta! Cooked to perfection, just enough sauce to cover and not soak everything. I love it too!

And yesterday we started this:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/unusual-trips/naples-culinary

We met at 3.30pm with a group of 10 foodies, had an aperitivo and walked down to the waterfront. Our tour guide Chiara told us a lot of Neapolitan curiosities and stories about their way of life, history and traditions.

We took a cruise along the shoreline of Napoli; Chiara telling us stories about all those mansions, when, why, how they were built and who lived or still lives in them. It was fabulous! And what followed was a delicious dinner at “Advocato”

We were so stuffed and tired when we got home, that we went straight to bed 😴

In 79 CE the volcano Vesuvius erupted with such force, that its original 3000 meters height was reduced to 1200 meters! This eruption buried the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii under its ashes and killed 1000s of people!

Yesterday we visited the archeological site of Pompeii und were amazed by the many modern features the houses had, heated floors, sewer systems, pedestrian crosswalks, etc. Since Pompeii was a well known destination with many visitors, it had at least 25 brothels, many restaurants, bakeries etc. Only 1/3 of the original city is excavated, the rest is still keeping many secrets we don’t know yet!

When I did research for my book “Fashion – who, when, why, where” (Kendal Hunt Publishing, 2022), that talks about influences to fashion by people, world events and catastrophes, one chapter is about the volcano eruption of Vesuvius. When anthropologists deal with bones and skulls, they categorize bones by looking at the quality, the wear & tear of teeth. In a society like Pompeii, where slaves were used for manual labor, sex work, household, etc. it would be easy to distinguish between a free person and a slave, because in all similar structured societies the teeth of the slaves would show malnutrition. But not in Pompeii! Many bodies were recovered and the main categorization between free people and slaves could be made by the amount of jewelry they were wearing. The occasional gold bracelet on a slaves wrist would indicate if she was a favorite, but in general, slaves did not wear jewelry. The teeth on the other hand were of the same good quality; no difference! And that could indicate that in Pompeii slaves were taken good care off. They were fed well, they got nutrients and vitamins. Their bread was of the same quality as the bread for everybody else. Slaves didn’t have fewer teeth, they lived a relatively good live here in Pompeii compared to other society with a similar structure!