Pompei - A city excavated

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Wednesday 14th October
Pompei - A city excavated
It is not such a beautifully fine morning but it is still dry and we hold out hope that the partly overcast sky will clear for our trip to Pompei.
After yesterdays running of the gauntlet,now to be known as “How to avoid oncoming Italian drivers on narrow roads”Gretchen has relented and said she would drive RR out of Sorrento to visit nearby Pompei rather than dismantle the car & remove it from the area piece by piece.
The short drive off the peninsula went without a hitch and we didn’t even meet any cars on the twisting,winding road down the hill to the main road.
We did however take the wrong for in the road and ended up driving through the ugly city of Castelammare di Stabia initially through the outskirts where the dirty streets were lined with rubbish skips with garbage spilling from them.We then found ourselves in almost the centro area and at crossroads where the traffic lights weren’t working and we had to take our lives and RR and go for the gaps to get through.Gretchen’s brother Chris had given us advice before we left on this adventure that at times you need to forget where you learned to drive and simply ‘drive like an Italian’!! No such thing as right hand ( or should it be left hand ) rules here!!!!
We had picked up the signs directing the way to the excavated site of Pompei which had been buried by metres of volcanic ash in the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79.We even had what looked like a tourist bus ahead and we thought that it would be in this part of the city for the same reason as us and if we followed it we would end up where we wanted to be.
Then for some inexplicable reason when the bus turned right we veered left and we ended up half an hour later climbing the road up Mt Vesuvius with the false idea that this was where we were going to find the excavated city.What we did find ,after climbing steeply past a succession of rather grand restaurants set back of the road that had signs out that they cater for weddings etc.,was that the road ended at the National Park.While we were stopped thinking what to do next a guy came over and greeted us with ‘bonjour’,he had obviously noticed the French number plate on RR.He offered us a ride up Mt Vesuvius on a bus and a guided walk,presumably to the crater.We declined even though it sounded tempting as we weren’t dressed or had suitable footwear for a mountain walk.He did help with directions,of a sort,to Pompei basically taking the same route back from where we had come and taking the correct turn when we got back to the centre of what is now the ‘new’town of Pompei.
This time we made it and found a car park in a privately run yard where if we had lunch at the restaurant the parking would be free.But the BBA is on to that one and we already had lunch with us and why would we want a restaurant meal in the middle of the day.?
We paid our entry fee and walked into the excavated city of Pompei.
The entrance we used had excavation still going on and what you look at is the face of a wall with buildings buried in it which is slowly being uncovered.
You could spend hours walking around the streets of the city that had been buried for nearly 2000 years.We could have picked up a guided tour but we like to do our own thing.Another option which we forgo was the audio tour and it was probably just as well as the place is so vast and detailed that we would have been there until closing time to get through it all.
We should have though at least got the large map that we saw people carrying once we were well inside the place.The maps were very detailed as every house or ruin is numbered.For some reason we weren’t offered one by the rather rude lady behind the glass who sold us the entry tickets.Perhaps they were extra but she still didn’t offer one to us.
So we pressed on taking the streets that looked like they had more people in them thinking that the houses or buildings in those streets must be more interesting.
It is quite amazing to think that the city was covered with 6 metres of ash from the eruption and yet all of that has been dug out to reveal buildings which in many instances still have walls and ceilings.Also visible in some houses are paintings on walls that have survived partly intact with colours that can still be made out.Terracotta urns and pots,some in almost complete condition, are on display in some of the houses.
The streets have the original stones laid and tracks worn into the stones from horse and carts are still visible in parts.
As we came near the end of our couple of hours of walking we came to what was the forum and here tall marble columns are still in place although the structures they held up did not survive the eruption or excavation.
In a storage area there are Plaster of Paris casts made of victims of the eruption from their incinerated bodies.These were created in 1863 during the start of the excavations.One of them in the foetal position is rather grotesque.
All the while Mt Vesuvius stands ominously close and quiet above the town its once perfect cone shape distorted by the eruption that blew the top off.
We drove back to Sorrento and on the way decided we should visit the town of Positano which is on the other coast of the peninsula.
This side is quite different to the one facing the Bay of Naples.The road to Positano clings to the sheer towering rock face and in some parts is only just one lane wide.There is not the population on this side although Positano has around 7000 residents who live in houses built in some of the most amazing places you are likely to see.Every piece of hillside land suitable for building on has been used and in some cases the houses form part of the rock face cliff!!
A major problem for us was trying to find somewhere to turn RR around once we had travelled as far as we wanted to.With the houses built right to the roads edge there are no driveways to use to turn a car around nor are there any other streets off the main road and we were starting to wonder just how far we might have to drive beyond Positano to find somewhere when before us was a short side road that seemed to disappear under an archway but there was just enough room to turn RR around.
The small amount we saw of this side of the peninsula was truly spectacular and we would have liked to spend more time but there was just nowhere to park the car to get out and walk to take in more of the sights without having to concentrate on the road and other drivers.
The weather now had clouded over again and it was a bit too cool to be out on the terrace for too long tonight with our drinks and nibbles and anyway the internet had crashed and we couldn’t get a connection.
After dinner we watched another of the movies,Atonement, we had brought with us.If you haven’t seen it yet it’s one of those movies you have to concentrate on to get the full understanding of the plot.
It had been another enjoyable day,firstly at Pompei,a place we had only ever read about and didn’t think we would ever get to see and then there was the spectacular scenery of the coast in and around Positano.A day worth remembering.

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Comments

[Chris]

Drive like an Italian
Living in Christchurch I still need to drive like an Italian to stay safe.