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| A Herculaneum fresco of Io and that randy shape-shifter, Zeus |
Herculaneum,
mid-way between Naples and Sorrento (the ruins are on the edge of a town,
Ercola) is fronted by a beautiful public park, a six-block walk downhill from
the train station. I took the Circumvesuviana train from Sorrento—crowded and
dirty, it’s still the fastest way to get there. It was my plan to spend an hour
or two at Herculaneum, then return to Pompeii (between Ercola and Sorrento) for the rest of
the day on the way back.
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| A delicate fresco in a bedroom |
Herculaneum—a wealthy town much smaller than Pompeii
with walking paths instead of chariot-wide streets--was hit by the volcanic gas
cloud, ash and debris some hours after Pompeii, when the wind changed. Equally
unprepared for the sudden onslaught of the six-mile high eruption of Vesuvius (ultimately
releasing a hundred thousand times the thermal energy unfettered by the nuclear
bomb the US dropped on Hiroshima, Japan at the end of WWII), many of the town’s
inhabitants rushed to the sea to try to escape in boats; more than 300
skeletons were found in the boathouses on the shore.
The people on the beach
were overcome by superhot gas that cooked their internal organs instantly—those
in the boathouses were not so lucky; the cloud of gas and ash--the pyroclastic
flow—suffocated them. I got the
audioguide, and it was so good I ended up staying for four hours, and was
completely worn out by sun and throroughly delighted by the wonderfully
preserved ruins, the barking frogs in the pond that marked the former seashore,
and the incredible mosaics in the women’s baths.
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| How about a snack at the Tasmanian Devil Panioteca? |
Originally, I had planned to
stay in Ercola, at the hotel across the street from the ruins. I stopped there
for a fruit salad and freddo, a delciously sweet iced coffee with a milkshake-like
consistancy (it’s pulverized ice, like a smoothie). The young waiter (with a
black eye!) played on my sympathies by saying he worked two jobs and had no
time to sleep—yes, I left a nice tip. I’m such a sucker. I’m glad I didn’t stay
in Ercola, a working-class town that would have provided little of the
excitement (and amazing views) of Sorrento.
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| Graffitti outside a Circumvesuviana train station |
On the crowded train back, I was
standing, holding on to a post when I saw a young Italian woman, seated in the
compartment on my left. She was pulling on her eye in a most peculiar way—tugging
it into a slit. She continued to do it every time I glanced her way. When the
train came to a stop, I wandered over there, and found an empty seat next to
her; thanking her, I sat down. I later learned (thanks, Rick Steves!) that the
eye-tugging meant to “watch out” or “pay attention”. I returned to the Marina
Grande village and had dinner at the Five DiLeva sisters again. We were getting
to be pals.
