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Wednesday November 21st, 2012: Naples and Herculaneum, Italy
Bob: Our ship glided quietly into Naples' harbor area just before dawn, but so slowly and smoothly that we could take pictures of the lights reflecting off the water and the mountains beyond. We had breakfast at daybreak and then walked around the decks taking pictures of the city, the island of Capri just off shore, the harbor and the volcanoes looming up in the distance out across the harbor. Forewarned about pickpockets, Monika took her theft-resistant purse (steel reinforcement in the straps and steel mesh under the leather pockets, etc.) and I zipped cash, ID, and credit cards in a small, difficult to reach pocket in my cargo pants before we set off for a morning walk. As it turned out, however, those precautions were probably not necessary because although there were a crowd of young men just outside the terminal importuning likely customers, we happened to walk out with a group of Carabinieri (English: policemen). I was curious to see that apparently just the older, more senior Carabinieri wore holstered handguns but the younger ones, like the English Bobbies, did not. Nevertheless, having five policemen in front of us and two walking right behind us completely dampened the enthusiasm of the crowd of young men to pick on us. Actually, the scene took on some aspects of Italian opera, more of the comic opera sort than the serious opera of course, which is the way things tend to happen around me. |
Monika: Our first port of call was Naples and we glided into the harbor in the early morning hours and watch the sun rise over Mount Vesuvius. It was difficult to decided where to point the camera: to the south and east was the Amalfi coast and Mount Vesuvius, to the north the city of Naples with the palace on top of the rise, and to the west the island of Capri. Very nice. |
Bob: First we walked on the street along the waterfront, which I don't recommend. The sidewalks were narrow and strewn with rubbish and the street itself, although broad and well-paved, was crowded with noisy, smelly traffic. Finding no really interesting shops on either side, we finally gave up and turned into the city proper and that was a lot more fun, Winding our way through the back streets we came upon a hole-in-the-wall shop that sold, and apparently manufactured or painted in the back room, an astonishing variety of small ceramic statues. Monika could not resist purchasing a couple to take home even though the carved wood items we had purchased in Germany had all been broken in transit. As it turned out, both the ceramic figures and the fragile wood carvings we had purchased in Germany were broken by the time we arrived home. Fortunately I was able to glue all the bits and pieces back together so that our precious souvenirs looked nice again. Curling back to the ship we found the main shopping thoroughfare a couple blocks up from the harbor-side street, but that was another large, traffic-clogged street where I found it unpleasant to walk. So we angled in through the little side streets again and continued past the castle to a little park beside a marina on the North side of the cruise ship terminal. |
Monika: Since on our previous visit to Nepal we had visited Pompeii and climbed Mount Vesuvius, we decided that this time we would see the other city devastated by the outbreak of Vesuvius, Herculaneum. But the tour did not start until after lunch, so we had the morning to explore Naples. We walked off the ship after breakfast and proceeded along the waterfront to the east. Here we walked along a 4 lane road with space for trams in the middle. What surprised me was that all along the broad road were bays for small gas stations. You never needed to run out of gas, when you were driving along this road. After about a mile along the rather unremarkable commercial harbor we decided to curl back and try the other areas. On our way back we decided to walk some of the small side streets. Here was the real life of Naples from Mom and Pop stores to some open air markets. And among the Mom and Pop stores we found one that sold ceramic figures. At this time of year they displayed of course mainly a large variety of creche figures. But farther back in the store, I found some more unique figures, a woman selling eggs and another one manning a produce stall. Since I really wanted them, Bob went ahead and bought them, although he was worried about getting them home. Indeed we did have some breakageby the time we got home, but Bob glued everything back together and it looks like new. |
Bob: On the other side of the park we serendipitously found roustabouts erecting a kiddie carnival that looked like it would open that evening. We wended our way along the waterfront back to the ship to rest a bit and have lunch before our afternoon excursion to Herculaneum. |
Monika: Since we still had some time before lunch we decided to try to walk the other way along the water. Here we walked past small marinas. At one point we saw fishermen repairing their nets after the morning catch and a little farther on was a sailing ship marina. At the end was a little park where a carnival was setting up. Everything was exceedingly picturesque. But we had walked enough and headed back to the ship for a well deserved lunch. |
Bob: Herculaneum turned out to be somewhat different from Pompeii, which we had seen during Wanderung 10. It was a smaller port city and had been buried by mud flowing from the volcano rather than volcanic ash like Pompeii. On the one hand, the thick layer of mud had really preserved things like wood, leather, and so forth in a better state than at Pompeii. But on the other hand, the mud made excavation quite difficult, and only about 30% of the old city had been excavated in well over a 100 years of work. The net result was that the excavated area that we could walk in was much smaller than at Pompeii, which made it easy to hit all the high points in a two-hour guided tour. |
Monika: Herculaneum was a smaller and poorer town than Pompeii. In addition only a small part has been excavated since most of the town lies 100 feet deep underneath several high-rise apartment buildings. So you can see the whole excavated area from the path that leads down to the excavated area. But this also means that after a couple of hours of walking around you feel satisfied that you have seen most of it. And seeing Herculaneum is well worth it. Some of the structures were still completely enclosed and held beautiful frescoes. In others you could see the way they were constructed. You could see how the people lived, since so much was still there. There was a wine store with amphora's still sitting on the ground floor and the living quarters with painted walls upstairs. The whole street seemed to be made up of two story buildings. |
Bob: Some of what we did see looked astonishingly fresh and vibrant. I was particularly surprised by the frescoes (painting on wet plaster walls) that still looked quite vivid and detailed after 2,000 years. Such painstaking artwork in what appeared to be upper- and middle-class houses that we toured between the main shopping street and the port area where we entered. Beautiful depictions of doorways, temples, and figures of gods and goddesses. |
Monika: The most beautiful part were the frescoes. In several houses we saw vibrant examples of still gorgeous paintings. |
Bob: The other type of art that had survived quite well was mosaics, which you might expect as they consisted of baked ceramic pieces. The floors were tiled with black-and-white mosaics, some with geometric designs that reminded me of the mosaics we had seen in Punta Del Gado in the Azores during Wanderung 14. But others were careful, detailed, and very recognizable portraits of gods, goddesses, or humans. A couple of the very best mosaics were, however, constructed with colored pieces, and it was just amazing how life-like a "picture" the artists could construct using such simple material. I was impressed. So wonderful to have artwork from the ancient world that has successfully survived into our modern times. |
Monika: There also were beautiful mosaics still well preserved, in the walls and on the floors. Some of them were beautiful geometric patterns, whereas the one at the bath house was a rather lifelike picture of Apollo as a mosaic. Wonderful. One particular enjoyment for me were the stone carved heads in the walls that, I think, were acting as downspouts. Yes, I do have a special fondness of gargoyles and these definitely reminded me of them. |
Bob: We ended our tour at a big pool still underneath the mud at the northern border of the excavations. The pool was in the basic shape of a "+" and had a bronze statue of a five-headed serpent right in the middle of the cross. On our way back we passed several of the "fast-food outlets" that served warmed food which had surprised me so much when we had toured Pompeii. Just before we reached the exit I detoured off to the side to find a greensward surrounded by beautiful columns that I took to be the forum area but I remain unsure of that as I was lagging behind to take pictures and could not ask our guide. After a brief visit to a cameo shop, our bus returned us to the ship and were just in time to have another pleasant dinner with Will and Corry before turning in for the evening. |
Monika: The last part of the tour was an underground pool area with a bronze statue in the middle. Walking back, Bob and I detoured through some of the areas we had missed. It is always amazing to me to see how much is still standing and how beautiful it must have been. Walking back to the bus thinking about what we had just seen, I saw the sun setting over the island of Capri. What a perfect ending to a beautiful day. The stop at the cameo shop after that was distinctly anti climatic. |
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