Naples and Pompei

Naples, Our Last Cruise Port of Call…

We arrived in Naples early in the a.m. and docked so quietly I doubt that anyone felt it. There were lots of tour options for today, but many of them involved a 9 or 10 hour bus ride. That was Bill’s sole criteria for tours….no tours longer than 4 hours. So, we chose a trip to Pompeii with a local guide.

First, a bit about Naples. Naples is the third largest city in Italy, with a population of about 1.5 million people. Naples is in Campania and is the place where Pizza was invented (at least the thin crust pizza), and Enrico Caruso, a wonderful tenor, was a native of Naples. It is in the middle of two volcanic areas, Mt. Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields. Naples was founded by the Greeks, though I am pretty surprised that the Venetians didn’t get there first. It was part of ancient Greece and then part of the Roman Republic, where it was a favorite resort of wealthy Romans. It was the capital city of the kingdom of Naples from the 13^th century until 1816, when it formed a union with Sicily. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. So many different civilizations (the Goths, Byzantines, Lombards, Normans and Germans) have stopped, fought and taken over in Naples, each adding to a pretty rich history, that it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Naples was badly damaged in WWII and again in a major earthquake in 1980. These two periods of destruction in modern times have allowed Naples to rebuild in a more modern way and a new city is rising on the edge of the Eastern Harbor.

Naples taken from the ship

Both Pompeii and Herculaneum, two cities destroyed by volcanic eruption in 79 A.D. are located outside of Naples. Of the two, though Herculaneum is much smaller, it is better preserved than Pompeii.

We boarded our tour bus, once again, no leg room, and heard a brief history of Naples from our local guide, Vito. He joked that his last name is Corleonne….I don’t know. It didn’t take long to go the 14 miles to Pompeii; again I was struck by how many apartment owners have as much greenery as they can cram onto their patios.

We export the best!

We arrived at Pompeii and were lucky to be early into the site, so no heavy crowds yet. Pompeii was buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. and Mount Vesuvius is the only active volcano on the mainland of Europe. The last eruption took place in 1944 and Vito says they seem to occur about every 60 years, so they are overdue. Bill was glad no eruptions occurred while we were there!

Pompeii Necropolis we saw on the path…

The volcanic eruption buried Pompeii under 60 feet of lava ash and mud, and it was lost for nearly 1,700 years before its accidental rediscovery in 1748. The forum, the baths, many houses, and some villas remain surprisingly well preserved. We know the exact date of the eruption (August 24^th, 79 A.D.) because Pliny the Younger provides a first-hand account from his position across the Bay of Naples, in a version which was written 25 years after the event. Perhaps it was so memorable because he lost his Uncle, Pliny the Elder, during the eruption.

Giuseppe Fiorelli took charge of the excavations in 1860. During early excavations of the site, occasional voids in the ash layer had been found that contained human remains. It was Fiorelli who realized these were spaces left by the decomposed bodies. He developed a technique of injecting plaster into them to recreate the forms of Vesuvius's victims. What resulted were highly accurate forms of the citizens who failed to escape, in their last moment of life. Hydrogen Sulfide gas from the volcano killed most almost instantly. This technique is still in use today, with a clear resin now used instead of plaster.

Plaster cast of a victim

The remnants of “The House of the Faun” are well-preserved and have beautiful mosaics in some inner courtyards. The house belonged to an important Roman family and is named for the bronze statue of a dancing Faun in the courtyard. There is evidence that after the great earthquake in AD 62, the House of the Faun was rebuilt or repaired, but was ultimately rendered unusable by the eruption. The layers of ash covering the abandoned town preserved artworks, like the mosaics of the House of the Faun, which would have otherwise been likely destroyed or decayed due to the passage of time.

Dancing Faun

House of the Faun, interior courtyard

The Roman baths are also in very good condition and Vito spent a great deal of time telling us how the baths were designed to work. The water for the public baths (men and women had separate baths) came from one of the great Roman aqueducts. There was a cold plunge pool, a steam room and a hot pool.

Roman Bath

The last thing we saw was the Forum, which was very interesting because I thought the pillars were carved from marble, but in fact they were bricks stacked in a pattern and then plastered over. A lot easier and cheaper to do than marble.

Pillars of Forum with Mt. Vesuvius in background

Once again, I was sad to see to many stray dogs of all ages, obviously not cared for, living in the ruins of Pompeii.

Tomorrow it is back to Rome for three nights before we go home!