Monday, February 23, 2009

 
   Living in Southern Italy, has its perks. The food, the beaches, and the most amazing historic and archeological sites all within an hour's drive away. Since I'm currently attending college for a BA in History, this is a huge plus for me. Although my kiddos don't mind going to all these wonderful places, they sometimes find no value in staring at something that doesn't move, doesn't talk, is half broken, or you have to have a History lesson to understand why you would want to look at it in the first place. Thankfully, Italy has entire Archeologically intact towns and villages to walk through and explore. That is something our kids can get on board with. If they can see it, touch it, explore it while someone is teaching them about it... it really hits home and expands their adorable little minds. 
   On a "for no particular reason" monday, we and our friends decided to keep our girls out of school for the day. We explored the town of Ercolano, which is home to the Archeological Treasure trove of Herculaneum. More intact than Pompeii, and not such a treacherous town to navigate, Herculaneum boasts fully intact villas, store fronts, and complete mosaic floors in many of the homes and bath houses sprinkled throughout the town. The most interesting thing we found, were the fact that most of the intact roofs that were still standing contained the original wooden beams which were charred through from the eruption in 79 A.D. Yet, the roofs still stood.   The children had an amazing day. 
They ran through villas, peeked at 2,000 year old art from inside said 2,000+ year old villas and store fronts, they wondered at the crumbling walls, and inquired about the kids that might have lived there thousands of years before. After exploring the town, we headed to the Interactive Museum up the road from the archeological site. The Museum is amazing. Imagine being able to walk through a completely recreated CGI example of everything you just got done wandering through would have looked like before the Volcano erupted. 
   And because pictures just would not have been enough to show you what a truly awesome experience it was, and how much fun kids can have with history, I put together this little video of our journey that day. Enjoy!
 More to come on Perugia, Umbria, Florence, Pisa, Dublin, Ireland (Yes, we branched out a little!!), and a return to Downtown Naples. Stay tuned!! 

4 comments:

Ann said...

Beautiful. I remember going over that in Art History class...you lucky duck, you got to see it live and in person!!

Your kids looked adorable exploring it as well :)

Valerie said...

I have a BA in History, too. For us fascinated with history, Italy is better than Disneyland! Wonderful fragments, 'talking' walls, and remains of ancient cultures everywhere you look. Your kids are so lucky to see it up close and personal at their ages; it makes it come alive for them.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant! Thanks for sharing your insights of Italy - I will certainly be back for more.
Best from Cape Town,
Pierre

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