My mother must be watching over me

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My mother's name was Katherine and here I am at the warm and welcoming Santa Caterina hotel (www.hotelsantacaterinapompei.it)- coincidence? I think not. Yesterday when I was scouting out a new place I spotted this one on my way to the ruins of Pompei and was welcomed by a vivacious and stunning young woman named- are you ready for this- 'Juicy'! Not only did she assure me the hotel had heat but she printed out the codes for their wi-fi and pointed out the computer in the lobby (which I am now using) as mine to use anytime I wanted for free. Then she showed me my future room- king size bed, huge bathroom with actual fluffly towels (and lots of them)-even little bitty ones for the bidet. I almost cried. Did I mention it was warm?

I had a wonderful night's sleep. When I left my chamber to find the breakfast room the maid stepped out of another room that she had been cleaning and escorted me to the 2nd floor where a lovely, glassed in, beautifully decorated room was mine alone. The tables were set with beige cloths each with an overlay cloth of a poppy flower design. Red chairs completed the color scheme. At one end a sideboard held a pair of two foot talls vases decorated with pastoral designs. On the opposite side was a sideboard for breakfast. There was juice, there was cereal, there was milk and I had my choice of coffee, cappucino, or tea. I chose tea and off the maid went to get it. I felt like Dorothy after she'd left Kansas and entered the colorful world of Oz.

My plans to explore the ruins of Herculaneum today were dashed as the partly sunny morning quickly turned into another rainy day. Best for me, with my precious new knee, not to be tramping around ruins. But as Miss Scarlett said "...tomorrow is another day. "

A history lesson. Everyone has heard of Pompei and the story of bodies turned to ash but I thought I'd give you a little background and some Roman history- really we owe a lot to those Romans. One of the only eye witness accounts was written by Pliny the younger, a 17 year old boy who lived with his uncle, the writer Pliny the Elder (I'm not making that up - that's how those Romans named themselves). Unfortunately, uncle, in his attempt to try to evacuate friends from a village on the shore below the mountain succumbed to poisonous gases and suffocated. In his letters to the historian Tacitus, the younger, conveyed the full event, from the first sighting of the plume of smoke to his own eventual escape from his home at Misenum, 18 miles away.

" You could hear women lamenting, children crying, men shouting. There were some so afraid of death that they prayed for death. Many raised their hands to the gods, and even more believed that there were no gods any longer and that this was one last unending night for the world.... I believed that I was perishing with the world and the world with me, which was a great consolation for death." He goes on to describe how "terrified citizens fled, tying pillows on their heads for protection from the rocks that flew around them. The ash cloud blotted out the sun, causing a blackness that was darker and thicker than any night."

Pompei was buried under meters of a pyroclastic flow, a superfast rush of hot ash and pumice with an undercurrent of rock and burning gases, all of which came barreling down the mountain like a tidal wave, the force ripping the doors and roofs off houses, and dismembering human bodies.

During the early excavations, archaeologists realized that the ash had packed around dying Pompeiians and hardened almost instantly. The bodies decayed, leaving just the skeletons lying in human-shaped air pockets under the ground. Holes were drilled down to a few and plaster was poured in taking a rough cast of the moment of death.

This what you see today but it is not the only thing to bear witness to. I was just as impressed by how organized and, well, modern, the town was. It was laid out like all Roman towns with a central square and a forum or marketplace. Fascinating to me were two sites (I'm keeping this PG and not describing the brothel): One was in the Forum in a small room with a countertop embedded with bowl-shaped depressions of increasing sizes. This was determined to be a system for the city's standard of measures made to forestall arguments between buyer and seller. The other was in several 'shops' where deep bowls were set into countertops where prepared foods were kept hot making them, possibly, the oldest 'fast food' placest on record.

There were many, many bakeries with ovens quite similiar to those still in use today in pizza restaurants all over the world. There was a theater that dated to the 2nd. century B.C. that could seat 5,000. Under the stage lay a reservoir so that water would flood the area during mock sea battles. There was a smaller theater (sat only 1,000) possibly used for concerts. The amphitheater (all our modern stadiums use basically the same model) was built in 80 BC.(the oldest in the world and still standing). It could hold 12,000- who liked to break out in brawls as much as they liked to watch gladiators fight.

I had the place literally to myself - which was at times a bit spooky and scary. When my grandson came, a few years ago, it was in July and temperatures were almost 120° and it was packed with tourists. It is difficult walking and the place is huge. If you ever want to come I'd suggest being young (ish) and doing it in March, April, Oct. or Nov. The clerk at the hotel (Roberto) told me he is Red Cross volunteer and they take 20 or more people out a day (on stretchers) during the summer because of the heat. You have been advised.

I'll close with the words Charles Dickens wrote of Pompei, " you can see, at every turn, the little familiar tokens of human habitation and and everyday pursuits....undisturbed to this hour...ten thousand times more solemn, than if the volcano, in its fury, had swept the city from the Earth, and sunk it in the bottom of the sea."

Carolyn/ Gunga

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Comments

[amy]

"cereal or orange juice?"
Bob's breakfast story from early 1980s: he was in England and Italy backpacking with a friend. In his English B&B, the owner offered him cereal or orange juice for his breakfast. Not quite believing the limited options, he said, "What?" She repeated, very slowly, "Do you want c e r e a l OR o r a n g e j u i c e?" It has become a family joke, repeated often if someone asks, "What?" in any context.

[D MJ Binkley]

You've gotten lucky stumbling onto these wonderful accomodations
Those bakeries sound great! Glad you are going with the flow. Thanks for the history lesson.