Wednesday 2nd April 2008

It is the presence of three very well preserved Greek temples that attract many visitors to Paestum. They come on day trips from the Naples / Sorento area (including cruises stopping for Pompeii, Herculaneum etc) and Paestum is included in many archaeological tours. Even this early in April, we certainly were not alone at the site. Surprisingly, the predominant nationality was French and almost exclusively school trips. We have always said that compared with German, Dutch and British holidaymakers, we hardly come across the French ...... except at major archaeological sites. The French seem to have a healthy interest in archaeology but when it comes to beaches, mountains, scenery, history and, of course, food and wine, they have it all in their own country and therefore don't feel the need to travel as much as we do. However despite the coach trips, there was still plenty of space for us all both on the site and in the museum.
There had been a presence in the area since prehistoric times but the town of Paestum was established by Greek settlers from Achaia on the Greek mainland in the 6th century BC and they named it Poseidonia. They built the their town and the three temples dedicated to Hera (550 – 540 BC), Athena (end of the 6th century BC) and Apollo in his role as a healer (middle of the 5th century BC and incorrectly known as the Temple of Neptune). The Romans took over the town in the 3rd century BC and renamed it Paestum but continued to worship the Greek gods and indeed made additions to the Greek sacred monuments such as adding an altar to the eastern frontage of the Temple of Apollo. There is evidence that this area was a melting pot of cultures with Roman, Greek, Etruscan and Lucanian influences. The site was eventually abandoned due to the encroaching malarial swamp, the shrinking of the Roman Empire and raids by Saracens.
The state of preservation of the temples is quite remarkable with the Temple of Apollo having two storeys of pillars, something that I don't remember seeing in any other temple. The Romans built houses over the Greek Agora and the low level remains of these can still be seen. There is also an amphitheatre, a Greek Ekklesiaterion (political assembly building), many altars and other small buildings but the temples attract all of the attention. The extensive walls (4.7 km) are intact to a reasonable height in many places and there are very large areas of the town that remain unexcavated.
It was about a mile and a half to the site but the walk was very pleasant in the warm sunny weather and also gave us a very good view of the walls. Every step that we took on that walk and around the site resulted in the rapid movement of brightly coloured lizards, we must have seen hundreds during the day. We arrived back well exercised and educated and, after an Italian sausage casserole with red wine, tomato, basil and olives, we settled down to sleep with the sound of the waves lapping gently on the beach.
Photos: Paestum – the Temple of Apollo – the best preserved and most impressive temple; Part of the Tomb of the Diver – the diver symbolises the passage of life to the ocean of death where man is able to find knowledge that is not accessible in life; one of the hundreds of Paestum lizards takes an interest in some discarded cheese.

Tuesday 1st April 2008

We moved on today and were tempted both by the Amalfi coast and a Roman villa at Minori. We dismissed the former due to the infamous, tortuously windy road (and the fact that it was hazy and the views would not be great) and the latter because we had seen enough Roman villas for the moment. So we headed straight for Paestum and the site with three magnificent Roman temples.
We arrived at our chosen site, Camping Sparticus (recommended by the Pompeii campsite and Lonely Planet Italy), in time for lunch and decided to have a relaxing afternoon and tackle the site in the morning. The weather was very good with a temperature of 23°C and, although there had been quite a strong wind on the way, the campsite was sheltered from it. We sat in the sun for lunch and were ambushed by a an East German man who was very keen to practice his English. It was actually very good and he was even able to tell jokes in English, including an unrepeatable one about the late lamented Queen Mother and involving a bath after a meal of beans and onions. Whilst we were chatting, another German couple passed with the man carrying a meter and a length of wire. When he returned some time later (we were still being talked at by our East German friend) he announced in German what the temperature of the water was at different depths. We thought that this was a little excessive and very Germanic. We thought that they were trying to decide if it was warm enough to swim but we later saw him going back to the beach with a fishing rod. Perhaps the temperature of the sea is critical for fishing – I have no knowledge in that area!
Given that the beach just the other side of the hedge in front of Henrietta and the sun was warm, Jane decided to have a paddle. She decided, without the aid of a thermocouple, that it wasn't warm enough to swim but enjoyed the brief and limited contact with the ocean.
Photos: The beach at the campsite at Paestum; Jane paddling.

Monday 31st March 2008

Our Wedding Anniversary – thank you Jane for 33 wonderful years.
Many moons ago Jane had said “Wouldn't it been good to spend our wedding anniversary on Capri?”. Well it would, and it was possible, so we did.
We had noticed yesterday that the train drivers were on strike today but only between 09:00 and 13:00. This meant that it was still possible to get to Sorrento for the ferry to Capri but it meant catching the 08:17 from Pompeii – unsociably early for us now but we used to be up and out of the house at 07:30 in England – we need to remember this occasionally! So, we were on the platform at 08:10 and got to Sorrento on the last train before the strike started. We walked to the port passing many tourists walking towards the station knowing that they their train would not be running. A very smooth and fast ferry crossing got us to Capri port just after 11:00. We could have taken the funicular up to the town but, being made of sterner stuff (and needing the exercise) we walked up. The town was a revelation – how the other half lives! Every designer outlet was there and the prices were obscene. After a brief look around and a minor diversion due to my map reading, we were on our way to the Villa of Tiberius – yes, more ruins. The walk there, uphill all the way, was interesting – lots of luxurious villas, owned by the rich and famous, with large grounds and the smaller houses, owned by the locals, still with wonderful sea views.
Having been to the Grotto of Tiberius, we felt that we should see his favourite villa. He spent the last years of his life 27-37 AD in Capri (he had made this his private island with 12 villas) and he died on his way back from here to Rome. The villa continued to be used by the Romans until 2nd century but little of it remains now and, apart from its spectacular position, it is not very interesting. There was obvious a problem with water supplies high on the cliff and I have never seen so many huge cisterns capable of holding many hundreds of thousands of litres. Tiberius had his gardens to supply and his baths, being above the cisterns, would have to have been supplied by water lifted from them. Tiberius was not a pleasant man (were any of the Roman emperors, you don't get to that position without a great deal of ruthlessness) and he took many lovers, female and male, the younger the better. It is said that once he had tired of them, he threw them off the cliff behind the villa and, believe me, it is a long way down and not a soft landing. Another interesting site close to the villa, but not accessible, is the 'lighthouse' that was used to send signals to the mainland. Given that Tiberius spent a lot of his time on Capri, he needed a way of finding out the latest gossip (and plots?) from Rome. Lack of information could result in assassination, a not uncommon fate of emperors!
We caught the boat back to Sorrento and had a quick look around, trying to avoid the English and Irish bars (fish and chips, Tetley's bitter and Guinness) before having an excellent celebration meal in La Favorita. This was a large restaurant but with a very pleasant atmosphere – a large section was given over to a greenhouse packed with exotic plants and every table was equipped with a pretty pot plant. Service was attentive but not intrusive and with a bottle of local, very tasty Frizzante, the meal went down very well.
Photos: The coastal path at Capri Town – unfortunately it was closed and Jane wanted so much to go down it and then back up!; La Favorita restaurant in Sorento when we had our anniversary meal.

Sunday 30th March 2008

The campsite is also very close to the railway line between Naples and Sorrento and today we decided to visit the Roman villa at Oplontis and the Roman town of Herculaneum, both easily accessible using this line. I wanted to visit a few buildings that I missed in Pompeii, so I went in early and spent an hour there (not a problem because it was free) and then we went to the train station.
Oplontis was the villa owned by Nero's wife Poppea and was also destroyed by the Vesuvius eruption. There was much construction work going on to consolidate the building and many areas were closed but it was still possible to see the luxury that Poppea would have enjoyed, pampered by her many servants. There was 61m x 17m swimming pool with attached exercise area, trees, grass , plants and many high quality sculptures; a bath complex; a large 'public' garden, a private garden; small indoor gardens with flowers and shrubs with the background frescos showing fountains, trees, plants and birds. The frescos in the majors rooms, mostly closed or partly covered at the moment due to the works, are beautiful and, once the work has been completed, the villa is well worth a visit.
On then to another cheerful place, Herculaneum, whose residents had a slightly better fate than those in Pompeii. Rather than the slow death of choking on ash, the people of Herculaneum who were not able to escape by boat were instantly vaporised by a river of superheated ash (a pyroclastic flow) that came from a different phase of the same 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius. This poured over the town filling every gap and, at 16m, covering the buildings thus freezing the scene at that point. The exclusion of air as this happened has lead to an incredible state of preservation with archaeologists finding food on tables and in jars, carbonised wooden objects (tables, wine presses, a laundry press, room screens, staircases, joists, beams etc) thus providing an invaluable insight into the life of the inhabitants. Some objects and people were vaporized but this left gaps into which the archaeologists poured plaster to produce casts. Examples are a man holding his nose to exclude the dust and fumes, a dog and wooden shutters etc. Much of the site still lies buried under the modern town although tunnels have been dug since 1738 to investigate the site. There is much excitement over the Villa dei Papiri built by Julius Caesar's father-in-law and containing 1,800 carbonised papyrus scrolls thought to include a number of literary works of the time. Archaeologists have discovered that these can be read by very careful excavation and modern technology. This is likely to produce an invaluable record of Roman life and Greek (the Romans kept and reproduced this) and Roman literature but progress will be, quite correctly, very slow as techniques will improve over time.
The site is much more compact than Pompeii and the buildings are original because, unlike Pompeii where buildings often collapsed due to the weight of the volcanic ash, the pyroclastic flow filled the buildings and supported their structure. This means that buildings are still standing to the second storeys and ceilings, with their plaster decorations and frescos are preserved. We were intrigued by the fact that, although in both of the sites all life was extinguished, frescos with vivid colours were preserved for nearly 2,000 years – I am sure that there is a scientific explanation. One of the most evocative areas of the site is the port where you stand looking at 16m of sheer rock, which was the sea before the eruption and beyond this the modern town continues to the new shore. Boats were found here, in the water before they were overcome by the pyroclastic flow. Likewise many skeletons were found where people were sheltering in the arches of the port buildings waiting for the boats that would have delivered them to safety.
On the way back from the site to the station we were stopped by a series of explosions. These turned out to be very loud firecrackers that were accompanying a religious parade. This appeared to be a sort of 'beating the bounds' but involving a large boat with Mary, Jesus and the odd saint aboard being carried by on the shoulders of a number of men. The boat was preceded by a number of groups carrying banners and as they approached each shrine on the route the banner bearers would make the banners bow to the shrine before they moved on. This took some time and meanwhile, the boat bearers would rock rhythmically in time with the accompanying band. Two singers, an older man and a young girl took turns to sing chants to the shrine before the procession moved on to the next point of worship.
It was interesting to think of the ancient pagan worship and the current Roman Catholic traditions as we returned to Pompeii. I am sure that there are many pagan facets preserved in Christian traditions.
Photos: One of the indoor garden areas viewable from guests 'salons' on either side; The port area of Herculaneum viewed from the top of the pyroclastic flow that covered the town – the green area in front of the arches was the sea in 79 AD; Herculaneum – the Hall of the Augustals was built by the freed slaves (the 'liberta') for the worship of emperor Augustus. The skeleton of the very loyal caretaker of the building was found on his bed in his room behind the wall on the right. He didn't leave his post even when his life was threatened; The Ercolano church parade with boat – the man at the front is helping to stop the boat from moving too quickly own the hill!

Saturday 29th March 2008

Yes, I know that we have been to Pompeii and Herculanium before but it would have been a terrible waste to have driven passed that fascinating area without paying it a visit.
Before going on to Pompeii I wanted to stop at Sulfatara, which was on the route. A few years ago we went on a Bristol University Geology Study Tour to this area and this was one of the sites that we visited. Sulfatara, like Yellowstone Park in the USA, is a volcano but doesn't look anything like Vesuvius or any of the other archetypal cone shaped volcanoes. It is largely flat, its floor has areas of boiling mud (produced a few hundred metres below the surface at a temperature of 170 – 250°C) and around the edges there are many fumaroles issuing mineral rich vapours at 180°C. We walked around, smelling the sulphurous fumes, avoiding the scalding fumaroles, looking at the disused sauna building and inspecting the well where they took water and extracted alum from it. We watched the steam pouring out of the fumaroles scattered across the hillsides making it look as though they were on fire. It is a totally fascinating and awe-inspiring place.
The Romans believed that this was the home of Volcan, the god of fire, and it certainly is an strange place. The land of Sulfatara sits above a huge lake of magma (molten rock) and this moves, expands and contracts, causing the surrounding ground to rise and fall, an effect known as bradyseism. When we came with Bristol University, we visited the nearby, mistakenly named 'Temple of Serapis' at Pozzuoli, which was actually part of the Roman city market. The pillars on this building showed marks created by marine molluscs at various points up to one third of the height of the column. This proved that the water level had changed considerably over the years and this whole area had at one time since Roman times been covered by a few metres of water. At the time of that visit the area was dry and their had been a recent sudden rise in ground level (a few centimetres in a few months). This can be the prelude to an earthquake (there are frequent tremors here) or an eruption and the inhabitants of houses in that area had been evacuated. If there is an eruption, we will all know about it as, rather than spurting out lava, this type of volcano explodes in a catastrophic eruption throwing huge amounts of debris into the atmosphere. Eruptions of this type often result in massive climate change with dramatically lower summer temperatures and extremely cold winters causing extensive crop failures. If Sulfatara erupts, the local area will be devastated and large parts of Europe and beyond will suffer the consequences. Let us hope that it remains quiescent for many years to come. On that happy note, it is time to move on to that cheerful site of Pompeii.
Pompeii was overcome by a massive eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, killing many of its inhabitants and burying the whole town under many metres of volcanic ash. The people who were unable to escape were killed by the poisonous fumes or suffocated by the burning ash. Yes, a most cheerful site! Fortunately, when we arrived the sun was shining, it was warm and there were no earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. We arrived at the conveniently positioned, comfortable and very reasonably priced (€14.50 per day) site of Camping Spartacus in time for a quick lunch. The campsite is opposite the entrance to the site of Pompeii and we got there as soon as we could. It was still Italian Culture Week so we saved the €11 each that it would have cost us in entrance fees. The site is large but not as extensive as Ostia Antica and many of its streets and buildings are closed to the public. This means that it is possible to see all of the site in a reasonable length of time but we had still not seen everything three and a half hours later when the site closed. I could write a huge amount about Pompeii but it still could not describe the experience of seeing it – get there if you can! We thoroughly enjoyed seeing (again) the buildings, mosaics, frescos (especially in the House of Mysteries) and getting an insight into Roman city life in 79 AD.
Photos: The author testing the crust of Solfatara with a large rock – it is so thin here that when the stone hits the ground you can feel the vibrations some distance away; The lecturers from a North Wales college were cooking their students in the Bocca Grande, the largest of the fumaroles. I was disappointed, upon enquiring, that the lecturers didn't know how long to cook them for – I would suggest at 160°C (the temperature of the fumarole), 40 minutes per pound plus 40 minutes; The plaster cast of a man holding his nose against the fumes and dust; One of the frescos in the unnamed tomb in the Necropli de Porta Vesuvio.

Friday 28th March 2008

We have discovered that in the daylight the campsite is more interesting. The site is combined with a hotel and shares some of its facilities including an outside thermal pool at a temperature of 30°C. The other good news was that we discovered that they had free WiFi Internet.
It was raining and we decided to stay put, have a relaxing day and catch up on the Internet. The weather cleared up by lunchtime and the BBC weather forecast for this area looks good for the next few days. At last we may have some prolonged sunshine.
So a very lazy day, listening to BBC radio, downloading BBC podcasts, updating the blog, sending emails and reading – just what the doctor ordered.
Photos: The campsite thermal pool.

Thursday 27th March 2008

It was time to leave Rome and Castel Fusano and start on the journey south. We chose the coastal road because the Michelin map showed it as a green route but, certainly to start with, it wasn't picturesque being lined on both sides of the roads with a continuous string of beach resorts and 50km per hour speed limits. However, a little later we entered a National Park and the views were much better and it was here that we stopped for lunch with water on three sides – the rough sea in front, the lake behind and the rain coming down from above!
We drove on to Sperlonga and the early 1st century AD Grotto of Tiberius just to the south east. This was one of Tiberius's palaces and he incorporated a natural cave on the seashore. Ponds inside and outside the cave were used to breed fish and some of the ponds have been restocked today. Tiberius was said to have held banquets on the artificial island with courses floated across the water on little boats. The cave was adapted to hold colossal Greek statues either original or high quality Roman copies – the jury is still out on that subject but Tiberius was a known collector of Greek antiquities. When Byzantine monks occupied the site, they objected to the pagan statues so they smashed them into thousands of pieces and threw them into the lagoon. They were discovered by an amateur archaeologist and many years have been spent piecing them together. The process is still on-going but the museum displays some very impressive partly-restored sculptures.
We drove on to Gaeta to attempt to find an open campsite. They were listed as opening on the 1st April but we guessed that they may have opened at Easter. We were wrong – after four closed sites we gave up. The nearest open sites that we knew about were around Naples so we headed there. We chose the nearest one at Pozzouli – Compeggio Complesso Turistico Averno. It gets marks for the length of the name and its convenience but the site itself wasn't over inspiring in the dark.
Photos: The Grotto of Tiberius from the palace; Looking out from the Grotto with the artificial island just outside the mouth of the cave; The Blinding of Cyclops.