The Real Thing

Like a previous trip I have been extremely remiss in not staying current on these posts.  However I did use that wonder App called Track My Tour (please tell Chris that I sent you if you check it out) which did a much better job.  Here is the link to this part of the trip -- Click here.

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Disaster!  It was raining on the day we were due to move from Naples to Amalfi via a walking tour of Vesuvius and of course Pompeii.  Vesuvius was closed as the weather had closed right down but don't worry, said Daniele, we have lots to do.  Spend more time in Pompeii and then there is a nice surprise.

Well, who doesn't like surprises?  And as it turned out, this would be a recurrent theme with Daniele.  Ending up with a nice surprise.

First of all Daniele apologised for his poor English.  Really!! Our Italian is pathetic and as it turned out Daniele had no problem in out talking both of us.

Our guide in Pompeii however was another thing.  Lovely lady, she again apologised profusely for her terrible English and from that point for the next 3 hours hardly drew breath.

Our guide warming to her task

As we wandered around this huge site, the rain did abate but I don't think it would have mattered as it was such an amazing experience.

These days Pompeii is 3 miles from the sea but this is the dock which is near one of the city gates.

The story is pretty well known.  Town of 20,000 sleepily going about their business for several hundred years were abruptly drowned in ash one morning in 79 AD when Vesuvius exploded.  I told our guide that I was in the process of reading the Pompeii book and she then said that most books were historically rubbish but that one wasn't that bad.  In fact she showed us the main roads mentioned in the book.

This is one of the main roads into the Forum ending at a drinking fountain that bears symbols marking the quarter of the town and of course for drinking.  Two roads into the middle of town from each direction.  Each of these main roads leads to one of the city gates.  Ramrod straight too.

Actually it is quite amazing to reflect that the only person to ever mention Pompeii and its destruction was the Roman author Pliny.  He was an admiral in the navy and happened to be in port that day so witnessed things first hand.  Had he not done so, nobody would have known Pompeii existed and bothered to look.  That's what happened to Herculaneum after all.  It was discovered under a pile of mud in the 20th century which is why so much more of their stuff was preserved whilst Pompeii's was largely destroyed in a maelstrom of fire and ash.  Pompeii is about 8 miles away from Vesuvius so wouldn't have been touched by lava.

The block of stone in the middle of the road is to step on when you are crossing.  It keeps your feet dry.  This road is one cart width wide.  People walk along the pavements.  If it rains, the water and undoubtedly all that other nasty stuff, runs along the cart path meaning that those strategically placed stones are really important.

Now that I am on the subject, I forgot to mention something.  Right next to the Norman castle in the centre of Naples was going to be a new subway station but in the digging they found an entirely new Roman settlement so the entire area is submerged in tarpaulins and plastic as the archaeologists works away.  So it really isn't surprising that Herculaneum took so long to discover.  Unlike Pompeii nobody knew it ever existed.

The site is very large and set out in the traditional Roman manner.  In the middle is the forum with public baths off to one side.  Obviously the temples to Jupiter and Venus are there, Jupiter dominating as he should being the bigwig amongst Roman gods.  But also the shops and taverns.  They could even identify what kind of shop from its layout -- multiple counters could mean a small tavern or cafe.  Lots of marble and running water could mean fish and meat.  Very clever all of it.

The forum in Pompeii

Ruins of a theatre that is currently used for productions

Standard layout for a Roman villa.  Longish entrance into small vestibule with fountain or pond open to the elements.  This is the greeting area off which is the meeting room and other small business rooms where the man of the house conducts business.  Behind is this quadrangle with a garden in the middle and bedrooms leading off in all directions.

The largest villa in Pompeii also housed the Alexander floor mosaic from the museum.  This is just bigger than the others and is the place where all the really important pieces that still exist were found.  It was called the Pan Villa because they found a statue of Pan but in recent years this has been debunked.

Alexander, or rather a replica

You just have to go and experience it.  I could spend a couple more days there easily.

And the surprise?  Sadly I have forgotten!  But here's a video of Pink Floyd playing 'Echoes' at Pompeii in the 1972.  My gift to you.

Getting Ready for Pompeii

Like a previous trip I have been extremely remiss in not staying current on these posts.  However I did use that wonder App called Track My Tour (please tell Chris that I sent you if you check it out) which did a much better job.  Here is the link to this part of the trip -- Click here.

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Probably the highlight of our sojourn in Naples was visiting the Archaeological Museum.  We hopped off the bus here for several hours which were just wonderful.

First of all, this entire region is really old.  There is loads of old stuff to house here.  But the really important raison d'etre of the museum is that anything of quality that could be found in the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum were moved here.

Not recently of course.  The Farnese family of the 16th century were popes and had a taste for antiquity so moved anything and everything that he could (statues, sculptures, mosaics, etc.) to his palaces in Rome.  Once Bonaparte invaded Italy in the last years of the 18th century, Italy's map was redrawn but one thing that remained was the Kingdon of the Two Sicilies which passed under the control of Murat, his great cavalry commander.  Murat took back all these wonders and put them into his palace which ultimately morphed into this fantastic museum.

Included too is a 'naughty' room where all those artifacts found in Pompeiian brothels are displayed.  In past days, only the bigwigs could view these delights.  Later on, just men.  It is now open to all over the age of 18.  Interesting sculptures, toys, trinkets, paintings and things couldn't really be identified.  As this is a smut free zone, I will leave the details to your imagination.

The young Augustus when he was still called Octavian

Uncle Julius with a very generously sculptured profile

One of the most famous mosaics from Pompeii

Imagine this was on the floor first of all.  This is what you walk on when entering a house in the Roman era.  It is a mosaic from a house in Pompeii that we later visited taken from an old Greek painting of one of Alexander's great battles against the Persians.  A copy of the painting is to the left.  Alexander's head is all that can be seen on the left.

This is a painting taken from the wall of a house in Pompeii.  The Romans painted directly onto the plaster which is why so few paintings remain.  This is red hued due to the heat of the big day in 79 AD.

The famous bull sculpture (room size from one single piece of marble apparently) reminds us why adultery is a bad thing.  If caught you get chained to a wild bull by your children like this God from antiquity.

Hercules after his 11th labour needed a rest so leaned on his big stick.  I had a cold drink and pizza.

See Naples and...

Like a previous trip I have been extremely remiss in not staying current on these posts.  However I did use that wonder App called Track My Tour (please tell Chris that I sent you if you check it out) which did a much better job.  Here is the link to this part of the trip -- Click here.

**

We'd talked about it for quite some time or rather I'd droned on about it, that we wanted to follow the European red clay tournaments from Monte Carlo in mid-April through to the French Open in the last week of May and first week of June.  However life does get in the way some times so we finally agreed on a cut down version which looks something like this:

• 2 days in Naples
• 6 days in Amalfy
• 8 days in Rome for the Italian Open with a group of tennis guys from Bermuda and Canada
• 7 days in Portugal, bottom left part on the western Amalfi Coast
• 6 days in Paris for the French Open (just Viv and I)
• 5 days in England

That's about 5 weeks.  Fantastic!

I confess to being a little anal in that I really do like to know the whats, wheres and hows of the places that we are going to visit but what the heck!!

I'd never been to Naples.  Viv had but on a cruise ship years ago so our collective knowledge was rather light however I'd started to read the book called Pompeii by Robert Harris and a book about the fall of the Roman Republic so was in the right mindset for Naples despite its more recent history (and there is a lot of it) is really, really old.

The route in took us over the Alps!! Just beautiful.

Naples or Napoli for the Italians was Neapolis for the 7th century BC Greeks who founded the city and Napule for the Romans who used the region as a holiday resort as well as enormous port city (according to Wikipedia anyway).  Home to 3 million people these days, Naples is quite simply a mess and mass of steaming humanity... crammed pack full of wonderful old stuff and really tiny roads.

This of course means road congestion.  

Of course there can be no reference to Naples without reference to Vesuvius which is right next door. It dominates all landscapes being so huge a double mountain, these days.  Formerly it was a single peak before that famous explosion in 79 AD blew it apart and submerged Pompeii, Herculaneum and I am sure a host of other unnamed and unremembered places.

Our first view of Vesuvius

We'd organised as much as possible a driver for all occasions as there had been so many of those warnings about tourists being stiffed over everything.  I found Daniele on the internet, Trip Advisor and the various online tourist guides.  His company could provide transport and tours of the entire region but also he was a sommelier and provided culinary events as well!  Simple choice really. Daniele's website is here.  Do check him out.  He is great.

It was one of Daniele's drivers who collected us from Naples Airport and took us to our downtown hotel.  It was in a maze of little side streets but importantly just up the hill from the central square and the old castle that was the feature of this part of the city.  Not Roman but still 600 years old!  Just a snip in time in fact.

The day we arrived was cloudless.  This is the view from the hotel terrace with of course Vesuvius in the background and the castle in the foreground.  Naples has always been a significant port town.

There really wasn't much time to do anything more than have dinner so we took a recommendation of a place called Il Garum from the check in guy and strolled down the street to enjoy it.

Different cities and countries have dinner at different times.  Spain before 10 pm is unheard of.  Here in Naples, it was 9.30 pm so as we arrived an hour earlier we had the place pretty much to ourselves.  And of course it showed us to be tourists as well.

Dinner was spectacular and looking back on it one of the top 3 meals of the entire trip.

Linguine alla colatura d'alici

Local fare is seafood even though pork, boar and porcini mushrooms are popular local dishes too.  But this one is the #1 -- anchovy juice cooked into home made pasta with olive oil and garlic.  This one was sensational!  It is also very traditional dating back at least to the Romans.  They called this sauce... wait for it... Garum.  Coincidence, eh?  I think not.

I just love the local in season little strawberries called Fragolini served with lemon juice, local of course, and a little sugar which is mostly unnecessary but when in Naples... 

I'd really missed the end of day Gelato and was not going to get off on the wrong foot!

And the night time view over the city ...