Naples

While Sue took a scenic tour of Naples I took a tour to Pompeii. No matter how much you read about a place like that it is fascinating to actually be in the well preserved remains of a Roman town from 79 AD. I was surprised to learn that the explosive eruption that buried Pompeii did not originate from Mt Vesuvius but from its adjacent neighbour Monte Suma. The eruption blew away two-thirds of the mountain and the sulphur blast is believed to have killed thousands of people in seconds. Any survivors who fled to the sea shore were killed by a massive tsunami. All I can day is bloody hell!

Many frescos and original paved and tiled floors were buried under volcanic ash and are well preserved. Sadly the frescos are now slowly fading from exposure, and there is not much they can do to protect them except ban flash photography.

We learned lots of things about life in the town, including that the population tended to eat fast food for lunch. There were about 40 shops in Pompeii that sold prepared meals mainly of lamb and chicken on bread to their customers. The city had 23 official brothels and 17 private brothels for a population of 20,000, which led our female guide to make some observations about Italian Prime Minister Berlusconni and suggest that Italian men haven’t changed much in 2000 years. We visited one and saw some frescos that were … interesting (yes, I have pictures :-). The worst aspect of this flesh trade was that all the prostitutes were slaves and the owners sold their services for less than the price of a drink. There is so much to admire about the Romans but they could be a terribly cruel people.

Sue was well and truly over history and more bloody ruins, so I took a leisurely coach run through Naples, highlighting the building styles of the city, and how 2 buses can pass in the narrow spaces that pass for roads!!  It was quite laid back after the pace of the last few days, and we knew that tomorrow (Wednesday) was going to be a long day.

Rome and the Vatican

Rome is overwhelming and the Vatican is doubly overwhelming! Everyone knows the main attractions – the Colosseum , The Sistine Chapel, St Peter’s Basilica – and it is awesome to be here and experience these places.  But the scale of history and art in this city is so massive that there is no way to do it justice here.

At the Vatican we had to take the long route through the museums to the Sistine Chapel due to the huge number of visitors. As we moved from room to room we saw so many beautiful sculptures and paintings (those by Raphael being particularly brilliant) that by the time we reached the Sistine Chapel (awesome, as expected) we realised that we had been seeing hundreds of artistic wonders most of which seemed just as impressive as Michelangelo’s stunning work.

Next we entered St Peter’s Basilica. We have seen many impressive churches and cathedrals – Phil has seen St Paul’s in London and Notre Dame in Paris – but nothing can compare with this! The vast interior of the cathedral is a multifaceted work of art made up of hundreds of paintings and beautiful stonework.

The only drawback was the walking – not just walking, but stairs!!! Holy Mother of Mary!!!  If we went up 100 stairs, then I think that would be an understatement, and what goes up has to come down again!!!  Lifts were not invented, so stairs it was.  We walked continuously from 1pm until 4.30pm.  We thought we were meeting up with the bus, but no way!!!  The bus was there to pick us up, but so were the Carabinieri, and they told the driver to move on!!  We then proceeded to play cat and mouse with the local police –every time the driver appeared to collect us, the police arrived and said no way. 30 minutes of exhaustion and more walking saw us do the quickest loading of a bus ever to be seen!!  We got back to the boat after curfew, but as we were on a tour through the boat company they guarantee not to leave port before all their tours returned.  It was a close run thing.  The only positive was that after ALL THAT WALKING we felt justified in having a gelati, and had no guilty conscience!!