Naples Part 3: Herculaneum

After 'climbing' Vesuvius in the morning, Robert decided to escape from the heat and return to our air-conditioned hotel. I, on the other hand, got off the train midway between Pompei and Naples centre to visit Herculaneum. Herculaneum was a rather well off port town which, like Pompeii, was buried by the 79AD eruption of Vesuvius. As it was a bit down wind of the eruption, the story of Herculaneum's demise is a bit different form that of Pompeii. In Pompeii, there was a massive fall of ash, causing many of the roofs to collapse. This, along with toxic gas was the main cause of death. Herculaneum escaped most of the ash fall, so many of the roofs survived. It was, nevertheless, buried under 20m of ash, mud and lava. It was discovered 10 years earlier than Pompeii, in 1738 (though some sources claim that it was earlier). However, it was never as famous as Pompeii because it didn't have the spectacular body casts. If fact, very few bodies skeletons were actually found at the site until recently, when about 200 were discovered huddled near what would have been the beach. Clearly they were waiting for boats to rescue them which were not able to land. It is smack in the middle of a suburb, you can see the apartment buildings that were eventually built on top of the volcanic debris.

The photo above gives you a better idea of how deep Herculaneum was buried.
As does this one. What you can see here is, to the right, the tourist ramp to walk down to the site. On the right, you can see what would have been near the edge of the sea. Obviously, the lava flow changed all of that and so now Herculaneum is inland.
Herculaneum is smaller than Pompeii and better preserved. Here I am inside one of the buildings. The object at the end of the room is a water font. The room is lit using natural light (a hole in the roof).
Herculaneum has some rather spectacular mosaic work. The white thing you can see blocking the shot is rope used to keep tourists off the mosaics.

Herculaneum also has some lovely mosaic work on the walls.
Like Pompeii, it also has frescos. This is one of Neptune.

This gives you an overview of the main part of the site. You can see the modern buildings above the site.
Here is another view.

In this picture, you can see some of the same wall construction we had in Pompeii. Note the window grill, which managed to survive.

The final photo, I am sad to say, is of grafitti inside one of the buildings. Grafiitti is an Italian word, so they must have invented it, but still, it is quite shocking that people are so egotistical that they feel a need to deface a historic monument (particularly one with such a tragic history) with their scratches. This bring to mind a comment that is attributed to Ghandi. When asked what he thought of 'western civilization', he responded that he thought that it would be a good idea.

Naples Part 2: Vesuvius

Just a short post today as blogger is being very sluggish with uploading photos. The day after I went to Pompeii, Robert and I 'climbed' Mount Vesuvius. I have climbed in quotation marks because there wasn't much climbing involved. Our old walking guidebook (the same one we had in Sardinia) suggested a number of paths you could take up Vesuvius. These were all closed. However, after discussions with Tourist Info, I was told that no one walks there anyway. You can take a bus up to the Mount Vesuvius Visitor Centre and then walk along a path along the crater. The starting point for buses is the modern suburb of Pompei. Note: I had a spelling mistake in the previous blog. Pompeii is the archaeological site, Pompei is the modern suburb where it is located.

The bus stopped half way up. These are the views down towards the main part of Naples. When I reported back from Tourist Info, Robert and I had the impression that a bit of trekking would be involved in climbing to the summit, which, at 1281m above sea level, would be a tallish Munro. So, we had walking poles, rucksack, water, food and a first aid kit.

We were quite surprised to see that the 'path' was better than most roads in Bolivia. People were even going up in high heeled shoes and taking their dogs. The Visitor Centre is just below the lip of the volcano. It took about 30 minutes to reach the crater. The path didn't go all the way around. It, quite surreally, ended at a little hut where you could buy souvenirs.


Here is the view into the crater. Apparently, in the past, you could get guided tours to the crater bottom. Below is a photo I pulled off the web. It shows quite clearly the road up the mountain and the path that goes part of the way around the crater.


The most amazing thing about all of this is that Vesuvius is an active volcano. Geologists are saying that it could go up again at any time. This would be quite a disaster for Naples and the surrounding area.

Naples Part 1: Pompei

Above is a photo from Pompei. However, before talking about Pompei, I should first say something about Naples. After Sardinia, we arrived in Naples in southern Italy. This was our first time there and we both loved it. A lot of the guide books about Italy complain about Naples. They say that it is chaotic, there are no proper traffic lights so crossing the street is 'interesting', and that you have to watch out for pickpockets. The books were right about the chaos. The main square in front of the train station is a busy place. It is filled with cars, buses and street vendors from all over the world (most notably from Africa). The books were also right about the traffic. Your best bet for crossing the street is to tuck in behind someone who looked local and just follow as closely as you can. Thankfully, we didn't encounter any pickpockets, but you could imagine that they were out there.

Ironically, it is the chaotic nature of Naples that made us both love it (it reminded us of South America). We have been back a number of times since. Apart from the chaos, one of the other plus points for Naples (and one of the reasons why we return) is that it is where pizza was invented. The Napolitanos take pizza seriously. However, you will get more about pizza later on in my series of Naples blogs. Below is a photo of the Bay of Naples. In the background you can see Mount Vesuvius. As we all know from our history classes, this volcano is why Pompei is such a famous archaeological site.

As you may remember from the Sardinia post, we took an over night ferry from Sardinia to the Italian mainland. This didn't land in Naples. It arrived in Civitaveccia near Rome. So we had to take a bus, the Roman underground rail system and then an normal train to arrive in Naples (maybe a three hour trip). We didn't had a hotel booked and so wandered around a number of places before we found one with a room. At this point, Robert just wanted shower and sleep (the deck of a ferry not being the best place for a restful night's sleep). I, on the other hand, went to Pompei, which is in a suburb of Naples. Robert later commented that I must have really, really wanted to see Pompei to set off in the full heat of mid-day after a night of almost no sleep. He was right. Pompei was on my list of 'things to do before I die'.
What makes Pompei so famous was its loss and rediscovery. It (and another settlement called Herculaneum which I will discuss in another post) was covered by ash from an eruption from nearby Vesuvius in 79AD. It lay forgotten until 1748 AD when it was accidentally rediscovered. The place is still being dug out. However, what we get is essentially a time capsule of life at that time. This is one of the streets. You can see that it is paved with stone. It also has larger stepping stones that you can use to cross the street when rains floods the streets (which must be a rare occasion, given the climate).

Above, you can see some of the ruins. More importantly, you can see Vesuvius. Geologists say that this would have been a perfect cone shape. So, you can see just how much of the mountain was ejected into the air by looking at what is left of the cone.

The mind boggles at what the archaeologists had to do to dig this place out. Here is a photo of the Coliseum.

Here is yet another area that must have taken a lot of digging. If I remember correctly, this was a public meeting area.

What I found particularly appealing about Pompei, were the little details. Above, you have a courtyard from a wealthy residence. It is quite staggering to think that this little statue managed to survive the volcanic fallout and was completely covered for centuries before being rediscovered.

Here is another example of the little details: a water spout. Obviously, the brass bit is recent, however, there are a number of these spouts on the site that actually work. In the heat, a bit of water to splash on your face is very welcome indeed.
Although I am not an artist, I am always aware of forms and patterns. I think that it is quite amazing that this house wall is build of bricks layed 'diamond-like' as opposed to on the flat.
I was also impressed by the three-dimentional effect in this marble floor.

Also notable were the frescos in the houses of the more affluent Pompeians. It is quite remarkable that they have survived for so long. This particular house was full of frescos: very well off people indeed.

I particularly liked the frescos in this house. It was all beautiful and delicate work.

Above is a close up of the previous photo.
Of course, what Pompei is really famous for are the bodies. Along with the ash from the eruption came poisonous gasses. People died where they stood (or huddled). Their bodies were covered with ash, which then solidified. As the bodies rotted, they left their shapes in the hardened ash. Later archaeologist were able to pour plaster into these molds to get an impression of the bodies. I was expecting Pompeii to be littered with such castings. This wasn't the case. Most of them have been removed. In a few houses, the castings are there, but in glass boxes. Still, the amount of detail is amazing.
I found it particularly moving to be able to see the details of this person's sandal on his/her foot.

The most bizarre thing about the body casts, is that they are stacked up with other artefacts awaiting analysis or placement back onto the main site.
This person, for example, was in the site storage area. You can just imagine the pain and horror that this person experienced. He/she is crunched down, he/she is covering their nose and mouth with their hands because of the toxic fumes... and this is how they died. All very horrible and yet in a voyeuristic way, I snapped photos of this cast along with all the other tourists. If you want to know more about Pompei and the excavations (and to see more photos), Wikipedia has an excellent entry.

Sardinia

Sardinia is an island in the Mediterranean. It is part of Italy (according to the Italians, but not to the Sardinians) and lies between Corsica and Sicily. It is a beautiful place and Robert and I did two three day walks there: one in the interior, the other on the coast. Sardinia is not well set up for walkers. The locals like people to take guides (i.e. to hire locals) and so there is no effort made to make walking easier for lone travellers. Maps are innaccurate and there is no signposting on the trails. We had an out of date description for both of these walks. This is not a place for first time trekkers, as even we got a bit lost (for a short period of time). This little figure above is a typical Sardinian design. I think it looks very stylish.

We arrived in Sardinia via the ferry from Genoa. We arrived in Genoa after doing part of a long distance trek in France called the GR5 (which will be posted later). I don't have our original guide book in front of us, and my atlas map of Sardinia isn't very detailed, so I can't remember all of the names of the places we visited. From the ferry port in Sardinia (can't remember which one), we took a bus into the interior, to be at the start of walk 1. This place was like something out of the Godfather movie. Little old women wandered around dressed in black and with black headscarfs. I have no photos of this because it didn't seem appropriate. I had no idea that they still had villages like this in western Europe in 2005!

Our walk started along a river valley. We passed this lovely natural pool and then continued up the valley.


As you can see by looking at the river below, there isn't much water in the interior of Sardinia. This turned out to be a issue later on in the day. Our main objective was a neolithic archaeological site called 'Tiscali'. I remember the name well, because Tiscali is the name of a well known broadband internet provider in the UK. It turns out that the founder was from Sardinia.
The site was very hard to find. You are encouraged to take a guide, which we didn't because we had a written guide description. One problem we faced was the fact that one of the streams that the guide book mentioned was completely dried up. So, we spent a hot and thursty afternoon looking for this site and even ran into other hot and thursty tourists. We eventually stumbled across the place and paid our entrance fee.

You area allowed to walk around Tiscali as long as you follow the marked path (i.e. marked once you are in the fee paying area).
Neolitic man was essentially a cave dweller. Here you can see one of the caves. After we finished our tour or Tiscali, we went up and over a mountain pass (again, it took a bit of time to find the trail) and then headed into the next valley system.
The start of this was also quite dry. We continued down until we hit a rather dried up river with quite sluggish (but not slimey) water. Normally, we wouldn't drink such water, but we didn't have much choice. We boiled it very well before drinking. It was just about dark by the time we found a place to camp and were to tired to even think about eating. We just drank lots of water and then slept. The next day, we woke early to follow and cross the river at a bridge and eventually hit a road, which we followed to a town. After stocking up on supplied and having some nice coffee. We walked along the main road heading towards our next walk on the coast.
Our destination is the town you can see just at the edge of the water. We stayed the night here and then started a coastal walk. This was supposed to take three days according to the guidebook. We did the coastal walk in one. Again, having water to camp was the main issue. This time, however, we stocked up to have enough.

The coastal walk was quite stunning. The shades of blue remind me of some blue yarn I have seen recently. So, Ack, you might want to call your yarn 'Shades of Sardinia'.

The path at times went down to the beach, at other times it stuck to the cliff tops. You can see how dry the area is, yet, plants manage to survive.
We passed by this interesting stone arch. This walk wasn't really signposted, but was popular enough there to be a trail to follow. At this point, we are following a dirt track.

Our guide book here was reasonably accurate. At one point, the guide book said: 'look for the tree with stones in it, this is where you turn off the train down a faint path'. Tree with stones? We looked out for one and sure enough, we found it. I don't seem to have a picture of this tree. We followed the faint path to the next landmark mentioned in the route description...

This shepard's hut. It didn't look like anyone still lived here, but someone was thoughtful enough to leave their garbage (Italians are terrible litterbugs).

Our coastal route ended at this little bay. It is a popular place with day-trippers and so there is a bar and a boat service to the beach. There are signs everywhere that say: 'no camping' (in Italian). The guidebook suggested that one could hide a tent in the bushes. We went to the bushes and discovered that this is where all the Italians were camped. So, we set up next to them, went to the bar and bought a lot of water. The bar guys clearly knew what we and everyone else was up to, but didn't seem to care.
In the morning, we then turned back towards the interior, this time following the river that fed into this little bay. The river valley was carved out into quite an interesting ravine. There was a track that followed the river that became rougher as we followed the ravine.
The ravine ends at a parking lot and a dirt road. We follow this to a town where we know we can get a bus.
On the way, we pass these cows. I always take cow photos when I travel. When I can gather all my photos together, I will have a special post called 'cows of the world'.

We find out town with the bus. I ask around (in Italian) to get bus info. An hour later we are on a bus heading down to the coast to catch our next ferry, which takes us to Naples.

While we are waiting for the ferry, we go sit on the shore and watch the swimmers dive off these rocks.
Robert, of course, has a go. He takes off his glasses and swims to the base and then climbs up. He then realises that without his glasses, he is nearly as blind as a bat so he can't see down well enough to judge the waves well enough to dive in. Of course, he seems to have no problem seeing and chatting up the pretty girl in the yellow bikini. He later climbed down to a lower level to dive off. If you look at the previous photo, you can see how high up he was.

Springtime in Scotland

It is March 1 and springtime has arrived here in Scotland. Today is sunny, if a bit windy. Here are some photos I have taken of the flowers in the court yard behind my flat. As you can see from the photo above, the daffodils are out. Below you can see that my neighbor's bulbs are coming along well.

Just a short post today. However, I thought that my friends and family who are struggling with snowstorms and a long winter might enjoy this reminder of what is around the corner for them. In any case, you can take solace in the fact that even though we might get spring before you, Canadian summers are much nicer than Scottish ones.