Rome, Day 5 (Pompeii and Naples)

We got up, unhappily, at 6 something this morning, ate the lovely breakfast that Elisabetta had left for us in our room, and went downstairs to meet our waiting taxi.  Our driver was nuts, and I had a panic attack that he was taking us to the wrong station.  He was on the phone for most of the ride, and while he was driving on the tram tracks (yes, really), Lyle is convinced the person on the other end of the phone told him he was going to get arrested.  Despite our concerns, we did arrive at the train station with plenty of time to spare, so went up to the cafe for a cappuccino and a coke.

Now being old hands at this train thing, we went down, got on our train, and laughed at the people in the wrong seats.  About an hour of dozing later, we pulled into Naples, hopped off and walked over a few platforms to meet our guide.  If you can imagine my mother, twenty years younger, hyper-caffeinated, and not conflict averse, you have an idea of Fiorella.  We'd been there a minute or two when she came flying in, all but grabbed us by the elbows, and announced that it was imperative we get coffee (her third, she told us, mind you it was still before 10am).  We got a quick explanation of how the area in and around the train station is deteriorating before we hustled outside to meet our driver.  Once safely in the van, we went to Pompeii.

Arriving in Pompeii, we discussed whether we needed more coffee (we said no, I think Fiorella was disappointed) and then got our tickets and went in.  As expected, Pompeii is amazing.  Because everything was covered in ash within a few minutes, it's a snapshot in time, and because real excavation didn't begin until the 1800s, nothing was pillaged, salvaged, or recycled for other building materials.  The streets are still intact with the chariot tracks varying in depth based on how busy the area was and whether or not the chariots were heavily loaded.  Frescoes and mosaics are still intact (though some have been removed to museums now).

We saw several baths (Pompeii didn't have thermal springs, so water had to be heated on site, and they had ingenious methods of created double floors and walls to keep things warm.), numerous little road-side restaurants (think take-away, not sit down), houses, brothels, the basilica, a few temples, and the amphitheater.  All of which were, if not really intact, at least recognizable as what they once were.

We also saw the plaster casts created by filling the space in the ash left when biological matter (generally bodies, but also tree roots, etc.) decomposed.  There is a cast of a small child that was interesting, but a cast of a dog that really bothered me.  Fiorella was not impressed by my priorities.  Most of the dogs living in Pompeii at the time of the eruption (79AD) left the area in the weeks preceding, probably clued in by the earthquakes.  (Most people left too.  Pompeii was a town of 14-17,000 people, but only about 2,000 were killed.)  This dog, however, likely a pet, was chained and thus couldn't leave and was killed in the eruption.  I hope he at least died with his humans.  Don't chain your dogs, people.

There is a temporary exhibit at the amphitheater with more recent casts, many of which have skeletal remains showing through (bone doesn't decompose the way the soft tissue does).  I found this interesting from an archaeological perspective, but surprisingly affecting emotionally (even though there were only human casts, no dogs).  These people died trying to cover their faces, holding onto one another, or just struck down.  In many ways, it's as if the World Trade Center was sealed at the time of collapse and only unearthed centuries later.  These people got up that morning and went to work (we know this because at some of the restaurants they've recovered both food to be sold and coins from sales earlier in the day) and then their whole world ended.  

On a happier note, modern Pompeii is home to a number of dogs that just live there and are sort of taken care of by the workers and visitors.   They didn't look to be in fantastic shape, but they looked a whole lot better than the street dogs one sees pictures of.  I didn't socialize with them (I know you're surprised, but at this point I just miss my own dog), but our guide says other than the occasional squabble between dogs when a new dog arrives, there haven't been any problems.  I guess if people are feeding the dogs, they probably find human attention reinforcing, but I still kinda shudder to imagine dog-loving small children trying to hug a dog like that.  Our guide says the dogs have a kind of exalted status and are allowed to really do whatever they want, including wandering around the closed areas, peeing on two thousand year old mosaics, and sleeping in the middle of exhibits.  She said the rest of Italy kind of thinks the Neapolitans are stupid for this, but that there's no movement toward change.

After another question about whether we needed coffee (we didn't), we got back in the mini-van and drove back to Naples for lunch.  We went to this little restaurant in Fiorella's neighborhood, which she was careful to warn us is not a safe part of town, and she doesn't take people unless they're dressed to travel (meaning we look like bums already).  She ordered fresh mozzarella for me, and they brought a block of cheese about the size of my fist.  I had been expecting a few slices, but hey, when in Naples... Fiorella had a bite, which she pronounced good, but too salty to be perfetto, and I shared with Lyle, but I still ate WAY more than a day's serving of cheese.  Then we had pizza.  We'd made the mistake of telling Fiorella that we'd taken a pizza cooking class in Florence.  She was appalled.  "Florentine pizza!  They don't make pizza in Florence, they make crackers!"  Neapolitan pizza is a little thicker (not like US pizza though) and soggy in the middle.  It was good, but don't tell Fiorella I think I prefer the cracker style.  This is a place she comes all the time, and she was very unhappy with them because the younger son was cooking today (usually it is the father or the older son) and he burned the crust a little.  Lyle and I thought it was well within acceptable standards, but she told them she was disappointed in them and they were appropriately apologetic.  They brought Lyle limoncello, only this was alcoholic and in a shot glass.  Not intended to be shot, we were informed.  It's a digestive.  Okay then.  We also had these little fried pastry things that were yummy.

When we were finished all that, OBVIOUSLY we had to have coffee, so we walked across the street to a little caffe.  Now mind you, Lyle did not want coffee, but if he had to have coffee (and he did) he wanted either Americano or cappuccino, he decidedly did not want espresso, however, Fiorella told him cappuccino after a meal is not allowed, so he had to have espresso.  I stuck to my guns and got cioccolatta, and Fiorella told me I was just like a little kid.  (This not being the first time I'd heard that, I was like, yup, and if you don't want a tantrum, give me my chocolate.)

Next on the agenda was the Museum of Archaeology, the oldest archaeological museum in Europe.  In order to get there, we had to cross the street.  Now mind you, we have been warned since Milan that drivers in Naples ARE TRYING to kill you, so Lyle has been very concerned about this for quite a while.  Also, this street has two lanes, which means that six lanes of cars were driving on it.  However, Fiorella marched into the road, holding her green umbrella like a witch's wand and pointing it at cars (she didn't *actually* say "Haltio!", but maybe she can cast silently) as she moved us forward one lane at a time.  I was seriously impressed, but Lyle was scarred for life.

My favorite thing about the museum, and it's a cool museum so this is saying something, was when we got to the second floor and three custodians (all of whom were men who appeared to be in their seventies or eighties) were sitting in a corner talking rather loudly to each other about soccer.  Fiorella looked over at them and told them to be quiet as they were disrupting her tour.  They did not immediately settle down, so she went on a diatribe about how they are completely useless, doing absolutely nothing except taking her tax dollars and how many young people need those jobs (this is true, unemployment among young people in Italy is more than 40%) and would be better at them.  Then she pointed at one of them, looked at us, and said, "Look, it's a mythological creature, do you see?  Half man and half chair."  I literally had to walk away right then because I was laughing way harder than well-behaved Americans can laugh at poor little custodians.  After that I had to try to pay attention to the (truly amazing) mosaics recovered from Pompeii, but every time I almost caught Lyle's eye or just glanced the custodians, I started to crack up again, so we had to move along pretty quickly.  Having said that, the level of detail achieved in these mosaics, and particularly how incredibly well preserved they are is absolutely stunning.

In addition to the mosaics, there are a bunch of other artifacts that were recovered from Pompeii, Herculaneum, and other cities covered by Vesuvius' eruption.  These include some amazing bronze statues that still have the eyes and pigments, marble statues, frescoes, and a whole bunch of everyday items like cookware, silver, and that sort of thing.

There's also, however, two whole rooms devoted to porn.  These are the so-called "secret" rooms, and they were kept closed to the public for decades, and then available for viewing only by men until 1960-something.  They include all the phalluses used as directional icons toward brothels; "good luck charms" designed to keep the evil eye away from homes; frescoes from outside a brothel/bathhouse that were some combination of catalog/suggestion/mood setter; and a very interesting sculpture of Pan having sex with a goat.  It was a bit of a departure from our other museum visits.

After that, we had to get out of Naples, so our driver took us back to the train station, and we caught the train back to Rome and then got a cab (who didn't drive on the tram tracks) back to the B&B.  We're in our room watching bad American tv, and I'm waiting to see if Lyle wants to go out for food tonight or just eat our way through the snacks Elisabetta has left us.

One more day in Italy.

Marty and Lyle