One Day in Pompeii

Borderline bored and not really feeling love, among the ruins.

My history with Italy goes way back to 1984, which was a very good year indeed. It inspired at least two great pop songs, and it was the 52-week period in which my mother’s 1983 Christmas present to me — a one-year subscription to Billboard magazine — was the gift that kept giving, every seven days.

It also was the year that I saw the television miniseries The Last Days of Pompeii. By the time the end credits rolled, I knew I had to go to Italy one day to visit the real-life city in ruins.

It took me nearly 30 years and four trips to Italy, but in 2013, I finally made good on that ’80s promise to myself and took a train — two trains — from Rome to Pompei (the modern city, not to be confused with Pompeii, the ancient one). Was it worth the wait? Well, yes and no. If by “wait,” we’re talking those 29 years, definitely. It’s not like I didn’t find plenty of things to occupy myself with over the course of those almost three decades.

But if by “wait,” we’re talking the three-and-a-half-hour trip by train to Pompei, well, I wasn’t kicking myself for making the effort, but I certainly could have found several far more entertaining ways to spend those seven hours of round-trip travel time in Rome. I’m glad I got to see Pompeii, but the truth is, I found the whole experience slightly underwhelming and borderline boring.

With the exception of Machu Picchu in Peru — which is as notable for its elevated setting as for its ruins — if you’ve seen one hour’s worth of gorgeously dilapidated UNESCO World Heritage Site-worthy architecture, you’ve probably seen enough.

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