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.

Running with the Bulls in Pamplona

Robert is a Hemmingway fan. He is also at that age where men start to buy sport cars and create a tick list of 'things I want to do before I die'. One of the things on this list was running with the bulls in Pamplona. This is a long established tradition in Pamplona. It started as part of the celebrations of St Fermin. This is San Fermin below. He is in the cathedral.

Being Spain, you have to celebrate the feast day of your saint with bull fights. The running of the bulls started off as a simple exercise in logistics. The bull ring in Pamplona (see photo below) is in the middle of the city. The corral for the bulls is on the edge of the city. How do you get the bulls from the corral to the bull ring? Simple: you run then through the streets of the town. How do young men (and not quite so young men) demonstrate their masculinity? Equally simple: you run along with the bulls.


After Hemmingway wrote about this in 'The Sun Also Rises' (published in 1926), the running of the bulls gained international attention. The increase in tourism at this time of the year is quite staggering. Hotel and restaurant prices trebble and to even get a hotel, you have to book months in advance. The celebrations for San Fermin rum from July 6 to July 14. This is not the actual feast day of San Fermin, but the city council decided to move the celebrations to this date because the weather was nicer at this time of year and it was a better time of year to get tourists.

You may have noticed in the bull ring photo and the photo above, people are dressed in white, have red sashes around the middle and have a red hankerchief around their neck. This is not a flattering look unless you are toned and fit, however, this is the traditional running with the bulls outfit. You can buy all of this in shops in Pamplona.

Above is Robert, dressed for the part. Take note of the short trousers. These are also traditional.

You will also notice in this photo that there are wooden rails. These run all the way from the corral to the bull ring and are set up for the festival. The route is 825 metres and is slightly uphill. The average length of time it takes to run from start to finish is three minutes. This is not a straight route, there are a couple of notorious twists and turns.

We were booked into our hotel for two nights. On day one, we walked the lenght of the route. Robert had a simple plan. He didn't actually want to run with the bulls behind him. He would find some nice safe doorway that he could tuck into, wait for the bulls to pass and then run behind him. Given that the run is over very quickly, I wanted to make sure that I had a good viewing spot. I have been told that people along the route rent their balconies. So, I asked around and got myself a balcony. We identified a nice doorway near my balcony. The run starts at 8am. Runners are asked to be in the running area for 7:30. They are asked to not bring any cameras or recording equipment (the idea being that many injuries are caused by some idiot in front of you stopping to take photos). So, the next morning, Robert claims his spot at the door. I claim my space on the balcony.

You will notice the that everyone is holding a folded newspaper. You are supposed to use this to hit the bull with if one gets too close. You may also notice the girl. Strictly speaking, girls are not allowed to do the run. The police weed them out of the crowd, along with anyone with cameras, and people who are drunk. Somehow, the police didn't notice her.

Robert's careful plan then hit a snag. What neither of us knew was that the police go along the length of the run and herd the runners into their own corral. So just before the run, the streets were empty. At 8am, a rocket is fired to confirm that the gate of the bull corral has been opened. The runners are supposed to say a quick prayer to San Fermin. A second rocket announces that the bulls have left the corral.

Robert had decided to modify his plan. He would try to return to his doorway, tuck in until the bulls passed and then run behind. This, however, hit yet another snag. Each day there are 6 fighting bulls and some bullocks. Robert, thought that he had counted up correctly as they went past him and so he started running. What he hadn't realised was that he was missing one! He later reported that when he realised this, he ran all the way into the bull ring and then quickly hopped over the rail. Apparently one of the worst places for accidents is the actual bull ring itself.

The photo above is a scanned post card. After Robert's run, we met up and had breakfast. Robert decided that he needed a rest and I decided to wander around town. One of the things I had decided to do was to surprise Robert with tickets to the nights bull fight so that he could see 'his bulls'. Normally, I am against bull fighting. However, I was also curious about it.

Robert was delighted with this surprise. One of the things that surprised us both was just what a party atmosphere it had. When we arrived at the bull fight in the evening there were people selling food and iced buckets of wine. We took our seats and were surrounded with Spanish families (including children) and their picnic baskets. I really do hate to say that I quite enjoyed the bull fights. So, Robert and I drank wine and watched as the first bull came out. The families around us were tucking into their picnic baskets: a real family outing!

The crowd booed and cheered based on the performance of the matador and bandillieras (the guys with the sticks). The biggest boos were for a matador that didn't manage to kill the bull with only one stab of the sword. What you are looking for in a good fight is a matador who takes some risks and a clean, quick kill at the end. Now, I am sure that some of you are thinking: what a horrible way for an animal to die. But, it is really? Think about that steak on your plate. This came from an animal that transported to an abattoir full of a lot of frightened animals that could sense that they were to die and then they get a bolt shot into their head. At least a fighting bull gets a chance to get back at the matador and dies with dignity.

One of the stranger aspects of the San Fermin celebration was the wood cutting contest. The photo above shows a competitive log slicing event (with chain saws). Very bizarre, but also quite compelling to watch. We both felt very Canadian getting enjoyment out of watching men with chainsaws.

What I haven't mentioned up to now was the route we took to get to Pamplona. We flew from Glasgow to Vittorio airport near Bilbao. We stayed over night in Bilbao. This is a fantastic city. The big thing to see here is the Guggenheim Art museum. This is an amazing building.

The surface is covered in titaniam. Because of the curves and reflectivity, the building looks different depending on the time of day. It is next to the river and to reflect a 'tie with water' the building has its own moat.

Below is a view from down the street. Note the dog shaped thing. This is a wire mesh dog that has been planted with flowers. Not exactly something that I would have in my garden, but I guess that art is art.
I much more preferred this spider sculpture.
After Bilbao, given that we were in northern Spain, Robert and I then went to Rioja. This is a region, not a town. We stayed in the pretty little village of Laguardia.


This (and Bilbao) are in the Basque region of Spain (as this wall plaque in a bar in Laguarida proudly advertises).


Of course, when in Rioja, one does have to do a wine tour. This is El Fabulista. They are a small operation and they still crush the grapes by stepping on them.

Laguarida is built on a limestone hill. The underside of the village has been carved out into wine cellars.
Finally, here is a view of the Rioja region (taken from the terrace outside of our hotel room). So this is where all that nice red stuff comes from.