First things first. Baia had closed the day we wanted to go there. Still, that was ok. We had a lot of other plans. Instead of persisting on Baia we decided to go to Pompeii. About ten years ago I was there with my mother, but I cannot remember anything from that visit, except of the few pictures she took of me.
As nearly everything in this times Pompeii had just a few visitors. During my student years I had one year of classical archaeology. One semester I had a lecture about certain methods to determine the age of buildings, objects etc. I can’t recall anything of that lecture, simply because the professor was dull and his lectures soporific. I remember one girl sleeping on her desk, her mouth wide open. I can’t blame her. Still, I remember that guy telling us about wall paintings in Pompeii and the four styles. Since then I wanted to see them by myself and see if they are easy to distinguish. Even I, an Egyptologist with a dangerous lack of knowledge in roman history can see the differences. Apart from that Rob and I had a great time. While Rome hadn’t much to offer, Pompeii gave a good impression of Roman daily life. Where were the taberna, where is the Vesuvius located. What did the houses of the plebs look like and how did the rich people life? It is one thing to see the ground floors in books and the paintings on pictures or the maps of cities. And it is one completely different thing to walk through the streets, being surprised about the small details like fountains, the height of the sidewalks and the hidden entrances of beautiful houses. Roman houses resemble Arabic houses or, more likely, the other way around. You can’t see how beautiful, calm and soothing they are from the outside. Walls and even shops on the outer borders of the house protect the people inside from the city. They created small oases with gardens and sometimes their own thermal baths. And don’t get me started on their mosaics.
We stayed two nights in the shadow of the Vesuvius. On the second day we wanted to start early to visit Herculaneum, another city which shared its fate with Pompeii. Unfortunately, the weather said nope, in big style. With downpours and heavy wind. In the afternoon we could leave. While Pompeii is located a little bit south of the Vesuvius, Herculaneum is squeezed in between the shoreline in the west and the volcano in the east. Given the architecture and its décor the city must have been wealthy through its port and the trade.
A thing that fascinated Rob and me was that the excavators back in the days dug until the ancient shore line. Sure, nothing is left of that, but they managed to secure one boat that had sunken in front of the shoreline. Also, they had rooms for displaying the jewellery they had found in Herculaneum. The level of the shore line and the level of Herculaneum today are separated by the amount of ash and lava from this famous eruption. We are talking about 20 meters in height, maybe even more. The tour through the city started at a very depressing point. While in Pompeii they had found holes instead of people in Herculaneum they had found around sixty skeletons, mostly children and women. After the eruption they hid in storage rooms right by the port. The pyroclastic flow could not reach them there, but they were trapped and I guess they suffocated. Maybe they burned because of the heat. Still, it is a sad ending and much less sudden then that of the people of Pompeii. Another surprising thing was the amount of wood that had survived in Herculaneum. In Pompeii the only wood you would find was new. In Herculaneum they did the effort to preserve the wood that was left after the eruption.
I did a lot of comparison between Pompeii and Herculaneum and now you may think it is enough to just visit one of the cities. Sure, do it. Still, I recommend to visit both. The setting might be similar, as well as the incident that created it, but so it is with different video games and you still buy it if you like it, right? (The reason, why I will play Assassins Creed Odyssey, because Origins got me fixed.)
After this little culture package, we drove to Salerno. Salerno isn’t that famous, more is the coast where it is located. The Amalfi coast is one of THE Instagram-spots in Italy. As we were arriving at this coast we had a code-red-storm with multiple tornados on the sea right in front of the shore line. In Salerno we wanted to give the ferry to Tunis another try. But the ferry didn’t like us. So, we spend some beautiful days in our B&B with a beautiful view on the water, a breakfast that didn’t gave us a sugar rush and used the time to wash some clothes, relax and have some walks by the sea. I managed to finish my first pants. Rob is in love with his new pants now. 😀
Currently we are heading back to the north, still deciding if we want to go for Greece or for France and then Spain. Stay thrilled! 😀
-Toni
TAKE YOUR SHOES OFF 