Page 32 - FAST 2024 Calendar Yearbook

32
We walked throughout the 2,100 year old city of Pompei, seeing rich villas like the home and gardens at left, store fronts and restaurants on main streets.
Opposite page: The city center with pubic buildings, statues,and a huge plaza where vendors might have set up and sold their wares. Here is one of many fast food restaurants in old Pompei where customers could walk up on the side- walk and order what they wanted. The pots on the counter might have contained cooked fish, meats and vegetables. And you can see a cooking oven and stone display shelves. The meals might be prepared on the beautiful marble counter top and served on bread. Many fast food shops also offered a seating area in the open patio through the doorway out back.
A typical city street in Pompeii. Sand and water would have covered the center of the road where the tourists are walking. The rock stepping stones would allow chariots and wagons to pass up the street, and have allowed people to cross the streets between the sidewalks without stepping in the street itself where all the raw sewage was dumped. Then each evening fresh water was flushed down the streets to purge the raw sewage out ito the nearby sea. Actual under- ground sewers hadn't been invented yet. But they did have lead pipes which brought fresh water to homes, pubic baths and fountains.