Naples – J-term Abroad: Roman Structures, Engineering & Society

Pompeii and Naples

The day began once again with breakfast at the rooftop restaurant in the hotel bright and early as the sun rose, as we needed to be on the bus by 7:45am to be on our way. Once we were on the bus, we met our guide for the day and we were off on our way south towards Naples and Pompeii. The bus ride showed a part of Italy that was new to us, as we had only been in the more urban areas of Rome till this point, and it was exciting seeing more of the countryside and hills of Italy. Along the way, we stopped to use the restrooms at a place that sold coffee, different sauces, and dried pastas, with many students grabbing gifts for their families and trying the coffee. After that, we finished the drive and made it into Naples, with the imposing Mt. Vesuvius towering in the background. The tour of Pompeii was absolutely fascinating, as we saw things like the amphitheater, some of the houses with lots of beautiful Frescos, different chariot paths and sidewalks, and other elements of society and life from the early Roman empire. Once we finished our tour of Pompeii, it was off to Naples for authentic Italian pizza at Lombardi Pizza in Naples, where the class had absolutely amazing margherita pizza. Then, we did a walking tour of the streets of Naples, learning about the rich and interesting history of the city, which featured fascinating engineering comparisons as it was a Greek city initially. After a brief issue with the mirror on the bus being broken, the class took a panoramic tour of the city via bus and then headed back to the hotel in Rome for the evening!

We noticed several engineering applications in Pompeii and Naples. In Pompeii, bricks were used to build most of their homes and shops. It was a Roman city, so they understood how to make mortar to hold the bricks together. Several of the larger homes used columns for support. We observed that the structural integrity of these columns came from a brick center, and they had a white shell around the brick to make it more aesthetically pleasing. Bricks were also used diagonally or vertically to fill cracks that formed during earthquakes. We learned that the streets in Pompeii were lower than the adjacent sidewalks because sewage would travel down the streets. The streets were made out of large stones, and the ruts from chariots could be seen. The roads also included little white stones that served as reflectors.

In Naples we saw some ancient ruins. These ruins were not made out of brick but were made out of large stone blocks. This structure was built by the Greek, not the Romans, so they did not have mortar to hold materials together. This is the reasoning for the large building blocks.

January 9, 2024 by rodi6387

Field Trips!, Naples

A Day of Time Travel

Morgan Fritz – Junior Civil Engineer

As Grant said we were able to see the ancient city of Pompeii at the base of Mount Vesuvius. Our tour guide took us back in time to the days when Pompeii was a bustling trading hub for those traveling from around the world buying and selling goods. Many things stood out along side the amphitheaters Grant discussed including the housing, activities, and plumbing used in the ancient city. The dining rooms were large rooms full of color that could host up to 15 people at a time, the kitchens used terracotta bricks to evenly heat the food, and there were personal gardens in each house we went were able to see today. The Romans are known for their excellent knowledge in water resources and they used pipes that would get smaller in diameter to clean the infamous dirty streets of Pompeii, something I found very interesting! They also used lead pipes, as we know today these pipes were actually slowly poisoning the aristocrats of Pompeii and explains why they were shorter than their servants and didn’t have a long life expectancy. We also walked through the red light district of Pompeii and discussed the use of pictures instead of language in this area because of the merchants coming from around the world without a common language to speak. Lastly we were able to see Mount Vesuvius from the Forum where we were also shown preserved human and pottery remains.

The class in the Forum with Mount Vesuvius in the background.

January 11, 2022 by frit6221

Field Trips!, Florence, Naples, Universities

From the North to the South

When I asked for a quote to start the blog like I’ve been doing recently, do you know what I got? I got, “Merry Christmas you filthy animal.” Thanks Claire. Tons of segues I can make out of that.

Well it’s been a couple of days since you’ve heard from us, and that can be explained. Sunday, as I mentioned last time, was a free day. Some people went back to Assisi, others to the soccer game, and others still to watch the Packers game. Nothing too special to dedicate a blog post to. Yesterday was filled with Naples activities, but unfortunately the hotel wifi couldn’t handle all 21 of us logging in at the same time, and so it broke. Our fault, for sure. Today we went from Naples to Pompeii, back to Naples, and then all the way up to Florence. I guess I’ll start from the beginning.

Early in the morning (by college standards), we gathered to say our goodbyes to Francesco, the best cook around. It was heartfelt and filled with handshakes and slaps on the face. We salute you Francesco. A couple of hours later we hopped on a bus and moved on over to termini station to board our train. The train ride only took about 1 hour, so it was pretty easy. Coming into the city we could see quite a lot of housing and small streets. While I may not have believed I could get a segue out of that quote at the beginning, it actually is a bit applicable to how I would describe Naples. Dirty. Normally the stereotype with Naples is that it’s full of crime, but if that’s the case then I couldn’t see any of that crime behind broken windows, graffiti coated walls, and all around dirty roads and buildings.

Long narrow streets seems to be their trademark

Once we had made it to the hotel, we were met by our local guide whose name I don’t believe anyone can recall, so in lieu of Gino, I shall dub her Gina. Gina was another college student studying restoration and was pretty quiet (probably because she didn’t know very much english). We embarked on what should have been a guided tour of the city with plenty of explanations along the way but it ended up being far more walking and very little talking. Along the way we stopped at a couple of churches with rather unimpressive architecture, but that’s most likely because we’re spoiled from being in Rome for so long. Gina took us through some back allies that were filled with wooden craft stores that had wooden figurines of the pope right alongside their favorite soccer players. Priorities, right? That took us pretty far out of the way and we eventually made our way back. Before we reached the hotel, we decided to stop at the local castle, which happened to be practically right across the street. From the outside, it looked like a typical castle with plenty of room for a moat. Inside, it also looked like a typical castle. There was a lane marked for entry and other for exiting, so of course we headed the way it lead us. Somehow it led us up into what looked like a court room but at the center was a small wooden box and a picture of some guy with a guitar. You’ve probably guessed by now that we did indeed walk in on a wake. People were crying over this guy and we awkwardly strolled through, not knowing who it was we had walking in on. It turns out the guy was a popular Italian musician who was from Naples. It was certainly an interesting experience…

You wouldn’t expect a wake in there, right?

After that aWAKEening experience, we skipped over to the hotel (some of us literally skipped due to losing a bet) and took a quick break. We didn’t have long before we had to head out for a local pizzeria on the other side of town. Since Naples is the birthplace of pizza, we of course had to learn how to make pizza. At the pizzeria, we were greeted by the staff and escorted to a few tables prepped for what was surely going to be a cooking disaster. Each of us received an apron and hat that read “Pizza school.” We knew right then we were destined to be professionals.

We all prep ourselves for an intense session

The owner of the establishment attempted to teach us how to make dough and some people caught on quickly. As for the rest of us, it was a bit more challenging than we had anticipated. A while and several attempts later, the employees gave us a premade dough and then we all began creating for real. We flattened the dough, added sauce, cheese, and veggies, and beheld our masterpieces. They soon began cooking pizzas for those that finished first, but for the rest of us we had to get by on the restaurant’s own pizza. When all had conceded or finished, we sat down for a full meal and wine. It was all great and probably made our work look completely foolish. Each and every one of us came out of that place with a diploma in pizza making, so it looks like we’re no longer engineers.

Ground zero of the pizza-tastrophe

One night of sleep later, we arrived at today. With another early start, we departed for the University of Naples in downcast and rainy weather. It was a ways out of our area and not particularly obvious. There was a point where the bus began circling the local stadium and we thought we were lost, but apparently the school was located directly next to the arena. The place was made up of a cluster of buildings and we headed straight to the back of them. Inside we were lead to a classroom that overlooked the architecture lab. In that room, we sat through 2 big lectures with the lengthier of the two lasting 1.75 hours. While the material was interesting, sitting there for so long was brutal. The professors explained their involvements in the restoration of places like Piza and local buildings too. After the lectures we headed into the labs to look at their equipment. They had huge machines that could crush with dizzyingly high forces and shake plates to simulate an earthquake. At the moment they had an arch set up for earthquake testing, but the test wasn’t scheduled for another 2 days so we didn’t get to see it in action. Instead, we headed underground to look at the supports for the lab, and that was just as impressive. The shake plates had their own suspended concrete floor that could move separately from the rest of the building so as not to affect the entire grounds by using the machinery. Let’s just say it must have cost a fortune to make all that.

The school’s entrance

Getting back on the bus, we headed south to our next destination, Pompeii.

We arrived around 3 and met up with our tour guide. It was at this point the rain started to come down more than it had been all day. She led us into the main entrance of the city where we had two stray dogs follow us in.

All in all, the city of Pompeii is fairly large, but only 70% of the city is excavated even though the excavation originated in the late 1700s. I could describe to you for pages what we saw, but I’ll give you a brief synopsis. The brickwork was old. Like real old. Like 79 AD old. Most of the main structures survived except for roofs and some walls, so it looks like a ghost town. The roads are made with large stones and have high sidewalks so that water could flow through the streets and people didn’t have to walk in it. Most of the roads were straight, but a few were curved. The general rule was that if you couldn’t see the end of your road, there was most likely a brothel somewhere on it. They had their own mini arena for fights and a theater for shows. The forum was large and open, like you would expect for politicians. Overall, it was an ancient dead city that was incredible to be able to walk through.

Our tour ended around 5 when the park closed, so we had to high tail it out of there. We said goodbye to our guide and hopped on the bus, headed back to the Naples train station for the next leg of our journey. The next ride would take us around 3 hours to reach our final destination: Florence. It was not more than an hour ago that we arrived, hopped on another bus, and headed over to our hotel that would accommodate us for all but one of our remaining nights. It’s got larger rooms than we’ve had so far but the wifi is spotty, so it’ll be a struggle to post to the blog or do anything electronic. Sorry.

A surprising amount of green

Well, that’s all for the past couple of days. Coming up tomorrow is our big day to tour some of the supercar factories, including Lamborghini. Did I mention a couple of us get to drive the Lamborghinis? Yeah. It’s going to be amazing. Stay tuned.

– Chris Apfeld

By the way, the internet isn’t working in my favor, so I’ll try and get the pictures to this and any upcoming posts up asap, but no guarantee it’ll work. It that’s the case, I’ll rectify that as soon as we’re within good wifi or back in the states. Sorry for the inconvenience.

January 20, 2015 by