Tragedies, Traffic, and Traffic Tragedies

Today we got up for an 8:30 departure for a road trip. Cesare was our private driver and boy were we relieved for it. This was not an adventure fit for a train ride, as none of our sites were convenient to the train stations, no matter what the train propaganda would have us believe. 

But first, breakfast.  Jane loved little Nutella jars.

As we left the city, we began to learn that the driving was even more dreadful than we had previously surmised.  Rome looks like an orderly system compared to Naples.  Something truly is amiss about their traffic, where cars just start speeding into oncoming traffic lanes to get around other cars.  Lights mean nearly nothing.  Cars are stacked in multiple directions.  Everybody breaks the rules, so the police don’t monitor anything.  By US standards, everything would look like a 1-lane road.  By Napoli standards, it’s a 2-way road with parking anywhere on either side, with room for pedestrians.  Our expert driver had a large van with a manual transmissions, but nothing phased him.  

We quickly arrived at Herculaneam.  Of the two ancient towns destroyed by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius, Pompeii is the much more visited and better known.  Those ruins have been exposed starting in the early 1700’s when a water drilling project discovered them.  Pompeii is a much bigger town, closer to 160 acres compared to Herculaneum’s 60+ acres (they aren’t sure how big it is precisely yet).  Herculaneum wasn’t discovered until the 1960’s.

The differences don’t end there.  Vesuvius erupted at 1PM.  Both towns began to evacuate, except those in Pompeii who figured this was an earthquake and took shelter.  Herculaneum was in the process of being evacuated by sea, their only route out.  All of the people they’ve found were on the shore side, in fishing supply storage rooms at sea level.  The people and city of Herculaneum were killed by a massive hot sulfur cloud instantly before being immediately hit by a pyroclastic flow of mud and lava at 500 degrees.  That occurred at 1AM, about 12 hours after the initial eruption.  Pompeii was destroyed by a rain of falling ash and rock that buried them, killing those who remained by suffocation.  Though Pompeii was the much larger city, many had been evacuated already and much of the town was empty while major earthquake repairs were underway from a recent quake.  They’ve found less than 3,000 bodies at Pompeii, while the numbers at Herculaneum are unknown.  Ships were in harbor to rescue the Herculaneans, but the flow caused a massive tsunami and killed those in ships as well.  It would take huge efforts over decades if not centuries to unearth all of the artifacts and people in  Herculaneum.  

An example of a ship on the shore that failed to rescue survivors.  

A map of the excavated areas of Herculaneum, although much more is now known and some will be opened to the public in 2027 celebrating an anniversary, including Ceasar Agustus’s father in law’s house, a major palace just off of the bottom left of this diagram.

This was a fountain in the center of the very large indoor swimming pool.

This is a statue from Ceasar Augustus’s father in law’s house.  

Because Herculaneum was filled with mud and not ashy rock, the buildings and the artifacts were preserved more completely.  Red paint darkened but drawings remained intact.  In antiquity, some robbers found ruins and removed artifacts if they could find them, but the scope of the site was never discovered or looted in large scale.

Gorgeous houses with complete frescoes are common.  Mosaic tiles are complete and in color.  Many housewares and fixtures were preserved in the mud.  Evacuees grabbed their coins and jewelry and headed for the coast, and those items largely survived, even on the bodies found.

This very grand house was one of many, but had beautiful illustrations.  Despite many being stolen in the renaissance, the slow work to shovel out the soil prevented completed theft.  They also left many frescos they thought weren’t appealing, a treat for the modern viewer who judge at them differently.

I particularly liked the food still life pics still in the halls, left and protected in place.  Every surface was painted and it was like walking back in time.  Some stone furniture pieces and even shop goods were preserved for viewing as well.  

The roadways were lovely, and Herculaneum had a complete underground sewer and cistern system for water.  They even had a pizza oven, although they hadn’t figured out to add tomatoes and cheese yet. 

A public water fountain.

Details in rich color were everywhere.

This temple to Hercules, the god of the town, was in superior shape.  

We liked the shopping area.

The waterfront was filled with these fishing supply rooms. People and their pets were packed in waiting for rescue boats.  The boats did not fare better.  These bones are replicas.  Skeletons, even with jewelry still on them, are all located underground in a mausoleum not accessible to the public.  In Herculaneum, all of the bones were destroyed by the hot mud disintegrated any flesh.  It was gruesome, and perhaps the top reason why Joel was hesitant to see Herculaneum.  However, we soon would learn that Pompeii was worse in terms of gruesome remains.

This wine shop had adds for the type of wines they were selling.

These original frescos still had embedded shells on the walls.

Jane and Beth at the grocery store on Main Street through town.  They found preserved foods in these casks.

The spa was very largely intact.  This was the women’s spa, which had a full underground heating system.

A view of the town.  the bottom fishing vaults were at sea level and everything above is resting on the mud flow from Vesuvius.

We met a private guide at the site, and she gave us a fabulous tour.  She was especially interested in ensuring Jane was engaged and heard.  We liked appreciated all of our patience with us and fascinating stories, so when she offered to follow us later in Pompeii, we agreed that was ideal.  We parted from Conception and were off to Vesuvius before meeting her later in Pompeii.

Hiking up Vesuvius was a challenge, with some light rain adding to the mix.  The experience was worthwhile at the top though, and we quickly forgot our struggle.

At the top with a view of a smoking caldera.  Yes, Vesuvius could erupt again, and yes, such an eruption would devastate all of the surrounding areas including Naples with mind boggling loss of life.  Not today though!

The last eruption was in 1944, and Joel’s grandfather Jimmy was there to see it happen.  Just outside of Naples as an air artillery during WWII, Jimmy had the unpleasant record of fighting in North Africa, Italy, and Germany before finally coming home after the war was won.  A couple of trips ago, Joel and I visited the town in Germany where Jimmy was when the war ended.  That town had been flattened, as not a single trace of historic fabric remained.  Felt fitting I supposed at the time.  

After Vesuvius, we stopped at a lunch spot just outside of Pompeii.  It was all fantastic, and we especially enjoyed the cats who kept us company at the table.  Though it lightly rained on Vesuvius and on Pompeii, it was never enough to warrant the ponchos we purchased.  We put the poncho hex on the rain, which instead drenched Naples in our absence.

Fresh sequester oranges and boba.

Pizza!

Ravioli!

I ordered gluten free lasagna thinking I’d pick around the rice noodles.  This was far from my vision of lasagnas, but consider me reformed.  This dish delivered first class bacon and pistachio flavor.  The super rich serving couldn’t be eaten more than a few bites though.

Jane was disturbed by this display of both a Pompeii resident and string backpacks in a gift shop.

These Super Mario vs. Pompeii bags did amuse her though.

After lunch, Conception met us again and we went on a 2 hour hike through Pompeii.  Large acres are uncovered, though not the whole site.  Going through town is a major hike.  This is the opera house where operas are still held.

The streets in Pompeii did not have underground sewage, so they were generally filled with stinky waste.  These large stones were crosswalks, which enabled residents to walk across the street while simultaneously allowing horse chariots to carry goods up and down the road.  The town of Pompeii existed for 700 years before the earthquake and layers of ruins exist even under the volcanic ash.  These roads were old enough to have deep ruts in the stones from the chariots.

Most homes had elaborate gardens as their summer residence half of the house, but ones without gardens elaborately painted them on.

The winter residence part of the homes had skylights where water would drain into a central well and cistern for use by the family.  Each of the homes had a pool like the one shown here.  They were in pristine condition in Herculaneum but varied in Pompeii.

A family of 13 was found in a garden, seeking shelter after failing to evacuate.  When they were buried in ash, they suffocated in agony and the positions show it.  The bodies completely decomposed with only the bones left behind.  The outline of the body formed a cavity that when excavated was filled with plaster.  These are the plaster casts with the bones still inside.  I didn’t know if Joel would want to continue the tour of that.  The looks on their faces were haunting to be sure, far worse than the skeletal remains in the mud at Herculeum.

The shopping street had many interesting vendors.  This is a fast food restaurant.  All of the countertops would have been shiny and bright like this one, which has been worn clean by tourists.

Dog mosaics were at front doors to warn would-be robbers about dog retribution.  However, the most common dog in Pompeii was a Maltese, not a vicious hound.

The marketplace and temple, our last stop.

After our departure from our energetic tour guide Conception, we headed back to town.  We stopped at the Corallo Building, the temporary WWII Battery A Command Post for Jimmy’s 351st Antiaircraft Battlaion.  Here’s Jimmy in front of the building in 1944.  They were located in this building when Vesuvius erupted 19-24 March 1944.  The platoon was forced to relocate its tactical position due to “falling rocks and ash” as well as flowing laval.  Vesuvius hasn’t erupted since, including today.

 

Here we are at the Corallo Building, just a couple of blocks from the base of Vesuvius.  It looks like they were renovating it when Mike was there, and the building is gorgeous now.  After rounds of miscommunication about our request, our driver finally caught on to the objective after Joel showed him the pictures and mapped it.  The driver visibly did enjoy this unexpected adventure.  The building, now an apartment block, was gated and enclosed.  Our driver crawled around looking for a way for us to get in front of it for a picture, but no luck.  He seemed more disappointed than we were.

Third and fourth generation of Griffiths at the Corallo Building

We returned to town for naps after this, but to get there our driver had to slog through traffic that boggles the mind.  At some point, he just ran a red light and turned right across 3 lanes of back to back traffic.  When he turned, another car and motorcycle came speeding toward us in oncoming traffic (3 lanes were at a standstill so they decided to use the oncoming traffic lane as a 4th lane).  As our driver worked to avoid him, the other driver had the gall to look frustrated at him.  The driver explained to us that Naples traffic is truly worse than anywhere else in the world he’s been.  People quit following rules and rules quit being enforced.  I was grateful he drove and even more grateful to be on foot again.  

More blogging later.