I’m gripped by the book we are reading for book club this month – Pompeii by Robert Harris. If you haven’t read it you might guess from the title it is about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on 24th August, 79 AD.
The event destroyed several Roman towns and settlements in the area. Pompeii and Herculaneum, obliterated and buried underneath massive pyroclastic surges and ashfall deposits, are the most famous examples. Archaeological excavations have revealed much of the towns and the lives of the inhabitants leading to the area becoming Vesuvius National Park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
I have never visited the remains of this famous area, however, we did go to an exhibition about it in London in 2013, and this is what I shared here:
We went to the British Museum today to see the exhibition about Pompeii, ‘Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum’ . We had an hour or so before we were due to go in… it was lunchtime… it was a nice sunny day… so obviously we needed a little liquid refreshment after a long hot drive from Somerset up to The Smoke.
We sauntered around Bloomsbury and came across a rather nice looking pub called the Plough. We wandered in and although clean and bright and well furnished and decorated it had not been spoiled in any way and was just a lovely, traditional London pub. A nice friendly young man greeted us from behind four tempting beer pumps, so we settled for a pint of Wherry (Woodforde’s Brewery) , a pint of Guardsman (Windsor and Eton Brewery) and a pint of Wandle (Sambrook’s Brewery)
We talked and chatted and told tales of beer and pubs and then had another couple of pints of Wandle and another pint of Wherry.
A Taylor and Walker pub
Brian drinking up before we head to the museum and Pompeii.
Lois Elsden 