As we explored Pompeii on a misty day, our daughter said, "This place reminds me of Narnia."

To the left you see one of the main entrances to the city. It's steep, and it would have left opponents at a clear disadvantage.

Apparently the people liked their town kept clean, so every afternoon they would dump water down this chute-like street to clean it. Carts came in a standard size, and you can see how the stone has ruts from centuries of wheels grinding.

We caught only one quick glimpse of Mt. Vesuvius, which sat behind the clouds with its top blown off. Its eruption in AD 79 followed a big earthquake seventeen years earlier, so the city was already rebuilding. This allowed us to see stuff like how columns looked in their half-erected state, providing a picture of steps in the building process. The eruption covered the world in eight feet of ash and another twelve feet of pumice mixed with ash, so roofs caved in, and the city was both destroyed and preserved.

Pompeii's ruins receive more than two million visitors annually, making it one of Italy's most popular attractions. But the dreary weather and the time of year left it virtually empty for us on a day when the temperature was actually pretty pleasant, and the lighting seemed to add color saturation to our photos (click to enlarge).

One of the subjects of interest to me here is what Pompeii's sculptures and numerous frescoes tell us about women's hairstyles at the time, especially those on paintings of women found on the walls of brothels (I cropped one for you below). Perhaps these can enlighten us about what the apostle Paul meant when he wrote to the church in Corinth, "And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head--it is just as though her head were shaved. If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head" (1 Cor. 11:5-6).