Pompeii recreates its lost gardens, orchards and vineyards.

The Archaeological Park of Pompeii has inaugurated new "green" itineraries around the site, since it reopened after the covid-19 lockdown, offering an insight into what the ancient city's gardens, vegetable plots, orchards and vineyards looked like before that fateful day in 79 AD.

Thanks to depictions in frescoes among the many domus buildings, scholars have been able to reconstruct gardens, from both private residences and public green areas, around the Pompeii site.

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The green routes are the result of a project born a year and a half ago, overseen by architect Paolo Mighetto at the behest of Pompeii's outgoing general manager Massimo Osanna, who will take up his new role as director general of Italian museums on 1 September.

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Mighetto says that visitors can appreciate the "close relationship between architecture and greenery that characterised the Pompeian domus," with the green areas thriving thanks to the fertile volcanic soil and the warm Campania climate.

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Highlights include the chance to walk among the vines of the Garden of the Fugitives, admire the peristyle garden at the Casa della Nave Europa, and enjoy the new internal path through the myrtle hedges of the Casa del Menandro.

For more insights into the recreation of Pompeii's lost gardens, see interview with Mighetto on the Made in Pompei website.

Photo Made in Pompei