Hello, I'm Lale Aricoglu, and this is Women Who Travel.

A couple of years ago, I found myself absorbed in a New Yorker article by the writer Rebecca Mead,

which dove deep into the infamous history of Pompeii,

and the new archaeological discoveries taking place there.

The journey from Naples to the ruins of Pompeii

takes about half an hour on the Circum Vesuviana,

a train that rattles through a ribbon of land

between the base of Mount Vesuvius on one side

and the Gulf of Naples

on the other. I got off at the stop called Pompeii Scavi, the ruins of Pompeii, and headed

towards the modern gates that surround the ancient city. Before Pompeii was drowned in ash,

it had a circumference of about two miles, enclosing an area of some 170 acres,

a fifth the size of Central Park.

You had that wonderful piece in The New Yorker, a couple of years ago, all centered around Pompeii.

Yeah.

I mean, what a fascinating, just terrifying place to visit.

If you've never been to Naples, as perhaps a lot of your listeners will not have done, it's, you know, it's this beautiful city on a bay, amazing sea.

You know, the island of Capri and Iskia are in the distance in the bay.

It is one of the most beautiful sighted cities I've ever seen in my life. And looming over it, there is this volcano with a sort of dipped out crater at the top that I'm not 100% sure if I've got this geologically correct,

but whenever I look at it, I see a point that is no longer there that was blasted up

into volcanic smoke and ash in AD 79 and buried, not just the city of Pompeii, but all of the environs and all that whole

coastline. And it's this, you know, it's still, it's still active. It's still a place that if you're

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