Pompeii, Italy (October 4, 2025)
Pompeii is one of those strange places that doesn’t really make a ton of sense. Why, for example, did the Romans know about what happened, but leave it buried? Perhaps it was because of an earlier volcanic eruption that happened less than a decade beforehand and they figured it was likely to happen again. But then, how was it all but forgotten for nearly 1,600 years and not formally excavated until 1748?
If I was willing to be part of a massive group alongside Elena, I could have asked these and more questions to an English-speaking knowledgeable guide who I’m sure would have been happy to answer these and more questions, but neither Violet nor I were up for that.
Only shot of the three of us together — the entrance gate at 8:55am
We discussed it and both Violet and I were itching to make our way deep into Pompeii on our own when the park first opened. Why? So that we had the place to ourselves for the first hour to just explore and play. Sure, we might miss some of the cooler parts of Pompeii, but the tradeoff would be that we also get the freedom of seeing what we want on our own timeline and free of the massive crowds that were lining up behind us and grouping into tour guides of 20 or so.
Violet and I celebrating our choice for “alone time” in Pompeii
These decisions don’t always work out in our favor, but this time it did. Sure, we would have loved to be together with Elena and were torn about leaving her with strangers in a group that would be poking along behind us. But tearing off ahead meant seeing everything on our own by ourselves without anyone in front of us and it totally paid off.
There were so many cool parts of Pompeii to explore. Perhaps the most notable parts were all the decorations. From the mosaics to the painted walls. Some of which Elena and I saw together in the MANN Museum (see related blog post). But it was different seeing it here in the actual buildings where people lived in the first 100 years A.D.
I can’t emphasize this enough. For the first hour to 90 minutes, Violet and I felt like VIPs. No lines. No waiting. No “excuse me” or waiting for a group of 20 to move on from one spot so that we could look at something. We felt like we had the whole place to ourselves. it was so amazing and wonderful. We had an absolute ball together.
Statue to a queen seemed to go here, so we filled in the blank …
“Let’s go this way … I wonder where this road leads?”
Pompeii Theater. Cool! What else can we discover!?!
Pompeii Kitty!! Friendly kitties are the best!
Original Pompeii Restaurant Selfie
And you get the idea. We tore it up and made short work of the very large city of Pompeii which they are very much still uncovering to this day. That’s correct. Pompeii is an active archeological site with teams working on various sections including this one we took a picture of:
Woman archeologist and her dog working on a floor section
I’ll share a few more of the pictures that Violet and I took while we were on our own to give you an idea of what we were able to see without the giant crowds we later connected with (as in, there was no avoiding). This was, by far, our favorite part of the day. It felt like we were inside an uncharted world and we were given the opportunity to explore on our own for 90 minutes before others were let in and joined us.
Some people spend multiple days here and I can understand why. While both Violet and I felt satisfied with our first 90 minutes, we ended up spending another hour or so using “Find My Friends” to locate Elena and determining her timeframe and establish lunch plans. As we exited the park we experienced the very thing we set out to avoid and that reinforced the decision we had made at the start of the day.
Growing Pompeii crowds by 11am in their small groups led by guides
This picture was taken in the largest most spacious spread out square. What I failed to do was take a picture of the more narrow streets where you can experience the highest levels of congestion waiting to get around groups being lead by guides.
In any event, we were thrilled to hear about Elena’s version of all the insights and things we had missed by not hiring a guide. In this way, Violet and I received the best of both worlds and all three of us had a wonderful time exploring Pompeii in our preferred method.
