Something New

 The day I dropped Mom off at the airport, I picked up two friends for our last set of visitors until early fall. These friends were on a tour of the Amalfi Coast for seven days, but had added some days on the beginning and end, which gave us some time together. Their first couple of days, we stayed in our Campi Flegrei region, exploring all the ruins nearby. As it turned out, they'd recently read Robert Harris's excellent historical fiction book, Pompeii, which is set in Baia/Bacoli/Capo Miseno, right down the road from our house. Even better, the book centers on the head engineer for the aqueduct running through this area and ending at the Piscina Mirabile, that large cistern I blogged about back in March. Our friends shared some of the book's plotline with me, which prompted me to head straight home and grab it off the shelf. What a great, alternative look at the area's history rather than just walking around some ruins.

Their tour had a free day near the end, so we arranged to meet-up for a daytrip. At the suggestion of their tour leader, they suggested we visit the excavations of two villas, Villa Ariana and Villa San Marco, located in a town south of Pompeii called Castellammare di Stabia (known only as Stabiae in the ancient times). Interestingly, the book Pompeii has a large end scene set in Stabiae, and by the time of this trip, I'd read the book as well. All three of us were able to remember bits of the book and apply them to what we were seeing. We set off for Castellammare and only spent 30 minutes lost in the thick of town, complete with one lane streets full of parked cars on one side and pedestrians on the other and speeding vespas. After finally finding Villa San Marco, we saw that it was well worth the time spent lost in town.

There are seven known villas in that area covered by the Vesuvius ash. Only two have been excavated, and both are ongoing projects. The villas sit on a high hill, with a fully developed plain in front of them reaching down to the sea. Today, between the villas and the sea are acres upon acres of multi-story apartment buildings crammed together, a bustling carpet of thousands of lives. At the time of the eruption however, these villas were waterfront property, complete with entrances from the sea. We parked and begin walking a path toward private homes, turned a corner to a little office and picked up our mandatory guide provided by the site (free, but a little tip is appreciated), then walked through some people's yards to get to the entrance.

Down a few steps, and we entered ancient Roman life. This villa is phenomenal and seems more like a palace. Our guide assured us that the prevailing theory is still that the villa belonged to only one family, and even better, they were from Rome, meaning this was a vacation home. We walked along what would have been their seaside terrace, then through rooms upon rooms, many with large, intact frescoes, saw their kitchen and living rooms, their grand entrance for guests coming by land, the afternoon parlor for the ladies, and two swimming pools, one of which was rimmed with carbonized tree stumps and newer trees replanted by the sites of the old ones. What made this villa so remarkable to visit was it's up close look at how the Romans lived. With a personal guide to answer all our questions (Italian only...but it went surprisingly well) and no other visitors, we really got to see a place in depth, to imagine the ladies in their afternoon parlor, to picture the powerful and rich owner striding down the columned and frescoed loggia, and to think of the servants, who lived in the section with the horse stables. While I love Herculaneum and Pompeii, those places are both so full of things to see that the sites themselves can overwhelm and the data intake can just be too much. Villa San Marco was a hit will all of us. The second villa was very interesting, but the villa itself is much smaller and is laid out with a bunch of individual rooms opening off of one long terrace - so we walked by rooms as if we were walking down a museum corridor - interesting, not as much as Villa San Marco. I also had a terrible time understanding our guide at Villa Ariana, so that also detracted from our experience. We finished up at the villas and then had a great lunch at a tiny little place we happened upon - it was mid-afternoon, and all other restaurants and pizzerias were closed. The family who owned the restaurant was fascinated with us - the matron of the restaurant finally asked, as we were leaving, why we were there. We may have been some of the only American tourists they've ever had.

As a side note, Castellammare di Stabia is the town that tried, last year, to ban miniskirts, playing soccer in the piazzas, and cursing. I don't remember now if I ever blogged about that, but it was big news right after we arrived here. I'm still not sure if the town council actually passed the proposals, but I did not wear a miniskirt, just in case.

Sunday in Herculaneum

Ancient Herculaneum, Modern Ercolano, and Vesuvius watching over it all.

When Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79AD (following an 800 year dormant period), the ash fell onto Pompeii, crushing the buildings, burning what could burn, leaving us what is now an overwhelming area of ruins. Pompeii takes a full day to really explore. But head northwest along the coast, and you'll come to modern day Ercolano, home to some of the best preserved 2000 year old ruins in Europe...the ancient city of Herculaneum (actually, the city was built around the 4th century BC). And best of all, these fantastically preserved ruins take only half a day to explore. As a side note, there was a devastating earthquake that rocked this region in 62 AD, and Herculaneum was completely rebuilt after this...only to suffer complete destruction only 17 years later, which really makes one think about the frailties of life and, in order to be a complete Debbie Downer in this blog, how little our material efforts really matter.

Rope found at the seaport

 ...depressed yet? Anyhoo, while Pompeii burned under hot ash, the (wealthier than Pompeii) citizens of Herculaneum headed down to the port for evacuation by sea, taking with them their gold and jewelry. (Yet another side note: this makes me think that guy on TV who hawks gold at every commercial break may really be on to something). Back to topic, again...hours after the initial eruption, a surge of hot gas blasted the town. At 900 degrees, this immediately killed all remaining citizens and carbonized all organic material (such as wood framing in buildings, plants, fabrics, wax tablets, and more interestingly, preserved the joint connections of all the people). Following this blast was a whole bunch of mud (or solid ash) - Nathan has a good analogy: honey flows very slowly at room temperature, but stick the bottle in the microwave, and then out comes this fast-flowing liquid. That's what happened to the top of Vesuvius. Hot air liquified the mud/ash/lava. This is what flowed down in several surges over Herculaneum, burying this carbonized town under 50 feet of tufa (volcanic rocks). There the town remained until about 1709 or so, when it was discovered during the digging of a well shaft. Excavations have taken place on and off since then. Once of the neatest features of ancient Ercolano is that the site goes right up to the edge of the excavated area, around which are tall walls. Immediately on the edge and on up to Vesuvius is the modern town of Ercolano. I enjoyed looking at those apartment buildings and thinking of just what is underneath them...grand villas of wealthy Romans, filled with frescoes, statues, papyri, jewelry, perhaps a few temples, some restaurants, some ancient apartment buildings upon which are sitting the modern ones.

I'm not really sure how often I can use the word "amazing" when I write these blogs, but I'm probably reaching my limit. Yet they'll still come out. Herculaneum is amazing. I visited Pompeii seven years ago, and while it's a wonderful site, it's a whole bunch of ruins. A column or two here where you must then imagine an entire forum, a foundation there to use in imagining the villa it once supported. Herculaneum has buildings, homes, thermal baths that you can actually walk into as if it were a modern city. When you look up, you might just catch a glimpse of the wood framing used within the rock walls. Frescoes are on the walls and you walk upon mosaic floors, giving any HGTV aficionado a great glimpse of the decorating trends of 2000 years ago. We took a photo of Nathan sitting in the "locker room" of the Men's Thermal bath. There was a bathhouse for both the women and the men, complete with a locker room, a cold room, a warm room (sauna), and the hot room. Herculaneum also had a very large gym (palaestra), which included a marvelous fountain of a Hydra (mythical monster that was a many-headed snake) which apparently flowed water all around it into the swimming pool, where young Herculaneumanos would go for their swim practice, which just goes to show that no matter what millennia we're in, people are concerned about working out. Although this gym also contained a fish breeding pond, so the ancient gyms were a little more versatile.

Herculaneum was so well preserved that food was found in pantries and stores. In one home, a loaf of bread was found, and fortuitously, bread was apparently once stamped with one's name; therefore, we now know that the House of the Deers was owned by Q. Granius Verus because this loaf of bread found there had the stamp "Celer, slave of Q. Granius Verus." My mind immediately heads to such hypothetical situations such as: What if Q. Granius Verus sent over his slave, Celer, with a loaf of bread to his new neighbor? I am assuming that the professionals have much better detective skills and subject knowledge to rule out these types of things.

House of Neptune and Amphitrite, so named because of these richly decorated, glass paste, mosaics. This was a personal dwelling.

Nathan hanging out at the Thermopolium (i.e., lunch joint). One such taberna contained the following saying painted upon the wall: "Diogenes, the cynic, in seeing a woman swept away by a river, exclaimed: 'Let one ill be carried away by another.'" Perhaps this particular taberna was an all male establishment.

Grocery Store

Walking the ancient paths

We Are Mobile...

Author: Stephanie

There is a gas strike beginning tonight at 10pm. Italians are genius at their strikes. I'm not quite sure what they are unhappy about, but for this strike, they have announced that no gas will be available from 10pm tonight through Friday night. As a side note, Italians do not have unions that will pay them when they strike, so a strike means no pay. When the transportation workers strike, they pick the time of day to strike. For example, the air traffic controllers may strike from 8am-noon, pilots will strike from noon-5pm, and some other group will strike from 5pm-midnight...or some such schedule. In this way, they can completely halt all air traffic for the day while still getting a half day's pay. See...genius.

Because of this upcoming strike, we were hot under our collars to get our car out of "jail" today in time to get a fill up. When you ship a car overseas, it must have virtually no gas in it. We shipped our car way back in July in order to have it here as soon as we arrived. This has proven to be a good idea since the base where we temporarily live is out in the country, and public transportation into Naples takes approximately 1.5 hours. Driving time is only half an hour, but public transportation is via bus, then train, then bus again.

In order to get our car, conveniently located right here on this base behind a locked fence, we had to go through a two hour Safety / Driving brief, which taught us the actual rules coupled with discussion on how Neapolitans ignore most of them. Then time for the driving exam on road signs. Sadly, "no french horns" was not one of the multiple choice answers for the sign in my previous blog.  We were allowed to miss two questions on the 88 question exam. I made 100% on my exam. Nathan missed two. I have to include this information b/c the reality is that Nathan will be a much better driver here than me, so I have to take my kudos where I can get them.

We then raced over to the on-base DMV office to get the AFI (Armed Forces Italy) plates, get our car insurance restarted for Italy, and get registration, then Nathan ran to the "fence" to liberate the car while I ran to the Exchange (dept. store) to get our gas coupons. (Yet another side note, the Italian government puts a very high tax on gas. The govt has allowed the U.S. govt to sell us a set amount of tax-free gas rations each month). Nathan ran out quickly in the afternoon to get a gas fill-up, so we could have a little freedom despite the gas strike! Yay! And we've just heard of a restaurant nearby with decent food, so now we can get to it.

Finally, I forgot to let you all know that yesterday's briefs included the very important "What to do if Mt. Vesuvius erupts and does not kill you instantly." The military disguised the title by calling it "Emergency Management." You will all be glad to know that Mt. Vesuvius's threat level is at Basic, which is the bottom of four possible levels, and it has been at Basic for the last 10 years. Furthermore, there is now monitoring which provides an early warning, so theoretically, we would have time to evacuate. As this was second on my concern list, next to our housing, yesterday was all around a successful day. And getting our car AND gasoline made today pretty great, too! The Volvo will arrive in about 6 weeks, but I'm on the hunt for a cheap little (very, very, very little) car called the Cinquecento for around town. Here's a photo, and if I can find the outfit this lady is wearing, all the better...