POMPEII: SOUND AND LIGHT IS BACK
Entitled “Sogno Pompei”, the tours are running every week-end, from Fridays to Sundays, until the beginning of November, in order to show good actors playing Ancient Romans added to the mix, in the wonderful Pompeii and let all the visitors dream.
These are part of the famous Pompeii's sound-and-light tours, an yearly appointment now returned alive, as Pompeii Mayor Claudio D'Alessio said ''We're very happy of the resumption of this activity, that has aroused so much interest and appreciation on the part of visitors in the last few years''. In fact this Italy's first-ever “son-et-lumiere” tours kicked off to immediate acclaim in 2002 and have proved a big hit ever since.
The one-hour tours are in three languages: Italian, English and Japanese and have a special soundtrack synchronised with the light show and mingling ambient noise with a narrative voice, illustrating the various highlights. They climax in the Forum with a dramatic video re-enactment of the famous catastrophic eruption that buried the city in 79 AD.
''We're hoping even more people will come here this year and get a kick out of ancient Pompeians'' added Claudio D'Alessio and Giovanni Guzzo, Pompeii Superintendent noted “Unlike other “son-et-lumiere” tours in Italy and abroad, the initiative offers visitors not just a simple show, but a real night-time stroll, through the digs that reveals an ''unusual and poetic side'' of the ancient city”.
In fact the beginning of the tour is at the Terme Suburbane, which was once a neglected district. It has become a big draw for its frescoes graphically depicting a variety of sex acts, presumed to be an illustration of the services on offer at the local brothel. Then the trip winds its way up the main road, pointing out the curious cart ruts, craftsmen's shops and a lot of famous villas.
The forum, which is the heart of the old city, is the place for the grand finale: here four giant projectors beam a special- effects-laden video reconstruction of the wrath of the volcano Vesuvius. It smothered the city and its lesser-known, but equally fascinating neighbour Herculaneum in ash and cinders.
It’s to underline that the total of 500 special lights are cleverly hidden, so that not even the cables are visible and artfully angle-poised: no danger at all of visitors being accidentally dazzled.
(by Loredana Grandi)
Sogno Pompei Tour
Every week-end from Fridays to Sundays until November 13th, 2008
Ph.: Sanctuary of Pompeii