Monday, May 13 - Pompeii

Pompeii's main square

Breakie at the hotel--a pretty good one, of which I shall make a habit. Then it’s on board the circum train for the bone-achingly long ride to Pompeii (it really wasn’t far, but the train stops at every tiny station on the line, stretching what would have been a half-hour ride into over an hour). I really didn't know if I wanted to make the effort to go to Pompeii, as I thought, "just more Herculaneum", but I was extremely glad when I got there. Spoke to a nice couple on the train--from Denver, where it was still winter when they left more than a week ago. They had gone to Amalfi, down the coast, and said it was terribly crowded and not much fun, so I scratched it off my list.

Vesuvius in the distance

Pompeii was and is an archeological wonder. Fantastic job of clearing centuries of hardened stone-like ash from a town that was smothered in a matter of hours 79 years after Jesus’ birth. This was a city--20,000 people wiped out just like that. The site is about twice or three times that of Herculaneum. The stone-paved streets still show the ruts from hundreds of chariot wheels.

Apparently the Pompeiians had no idea Vesuvio was a volcano, since it hadn't erupted in 1200-1500 years. A serious earthquake a few years prior to the 79AD eruption did some damage to the town's structures, and the repair work was left half-finished when buried in a mountain of ash. Much as I’d like to believe the official "instanteous death" line, the two plaster casts of the victims encased in glass in the market square do not look happy--they look in agony. I later found out they had died in the same way as the victims in the boathouses of Herculaneum: the pyroclastic flow swept over the town, causing suffocation. 

The first breath brought in superheated ash, which caused the lungs to fill with water. The second breath turned the inhaled ash to cement, and...there was no third breath, as the throat constricted and closed off the airways, so the citizens of Pompeii died very much like drowning victims.

Those ruts are from thousands of chariot wheels

Once again, I was astounded by Roman engineering, from the aquaduct and water system that flooded the streets every day to wash down the animal droppings to the large stones set in the roadways (conviently sized and spaced to accommodate passing chariots, all of which were built to the same specifications).

The famous faun (the original is in Naples) from the House of the Faun

On the return train, I was confounded by a stiuation. When the doors open to board the train, riders step into an empty entry compartment, and either go left or right to the compartments with seats. An older Chinese man and young girl had loaded on an enormous cart covered in plastic into the entry compartment, along with several large bags, also wrapped in plastic. When it came to their stop, they wrestled the cart off along with a couple of the smaller bags, and left the other large plastic bags on the train. Immediately my thoughts went to “bomb alert!”. As casually as possible, I moved away through the compartment to the next standing area (pa GAWK!—yes, I am a chicken)—which was also full of mysterious plastic bags. It was then I realized that people left their garbage on the train.

View of the harbor from Sorrento

Back to Sorrento after a full day, I ate at a perfectly terrible restaurant near the hotel--la felice. The calamari was adequate, but the service was impossible--I felt like the waiter was completely ignoring me. Wait, he WAS ignoring me, in favor of serving the Italian families first. No tip for him! I don’t recall how it was in Umbria or Rome the last time I was in Italy, but in Sorrento, you have to insist on paying people at the end of a meal; no one actually expects a tip and they seem genuinely surprised and grateful to get one. Quite charming.

See more images of Sorrento, Pompeii and Herculaneum on my website gallery page

Sunday, May 12, Mother’s Day in the Ruins - Herculaneum

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. 

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.

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. 

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.

See more images of Sorrento, Pompeii and Herculaneum on my website gallery page