Daily Photos & Frugal Travel Tips

As soon as the ruins of Pompeii were excavated, the relationship between plants and ruins as defined: the ancient buildings were soon overgrown as the plants’ riotous growth is encourage by the fertility of the volcanic soil and by the mild climate.

A lot of time had to pass before the archaeological area was organized, for example applying new technologies, and using a combined approach to the restoration of the gardens with an integrated system of vegetation management that respected the precious local flora.

The gardens of ancient Pompeii are today unique in the world, as they show the organization of green spaces in a provincial city 2,000 years ago.

(Taken From Official Guidebook)

Public Administration Buildings

Remodeled in opus latericium after the earthquake in 62 AD, these were not built according to a coordinated plan: the two to the east are from the same period ( before 80 BC); the other is more recent, and still has its marble floor. These are rectangular rooms, with central niches, whose function is the subject of some debate: the eastern hall may have been the meeting room for the administrators, the central hall the tabularium (legal archive), the other, the hall of the decurions. Next, opening onto via dell’Abbondanza, is the Comitium, an open-air hall where the populus was summoned to exercise their political-administrative rights. Completed before 89 BC, it has a tribunal on the south side, flanked by niches with statues: it held the administrators, who presided over the assemblies and supervised the voting procedures.

(Taken From Official Guidebook)

Porta Nola and the City Walls

Porta Nola owes its name to the fact that it opened onto the road leading to the Nola countryside. An inscription in the Oscan language (no longer present) on the facade of the gate attributes its construction to the meddix tuticus (supreme funtionary) Vibio Popidio (approximately 3rd Cent. BC). It has surfaces of opua quadratum, consisting on rows of tufa blocks, and a barrel vault in opus caementicium. In the keystone of the internal arch is a sculpture of Minerva’s head, almost as though to place the entrance to the city under the goddess’s protection. The outer gate is preceded by two bastions fitted into the walls: these were intended to force any attackers to come out into the open in order to cross a dangerous gorge. The south section of the walls, to the right leaving the city, was rebuilt to approximately 100 m in opus caementicium, perhaps after 100 BC. The north section instead retains its dual structure, with limestone base and upper portion in tufa.