Vesuvius and its victims. Thursday 30th June

Apart from the little brain cell episode, it has been a remarkable 3 days. We found a scruffy little yacht club in Torre Annunziata (close to Pompeii) where a jovial chap did us a cheap deal for 3 nights @ €20 per night. And we could top up with both power and water. But Torre is the other side of Italy, a real town with some ok bits and tenements, rubbish everywhere except in the bins and utter chaos. And also lots of little local grocers, butchers, etc who are kindness and cheerfulness itself. Whilst here, we have visited the Villa Aplontis (here in Torre), Herculaneum and Pompeii (in that order) and climbed to look into the crater of Vesuvius. All of these sites were victims of an earthquake in 62AD as well as the Vesuvius eruption of 24 August 79AD and all suffered differently. And a bit like Rome, I can't really do them justice here.

We were fortunate in doing the sites in that order, from the small and detailed to the large and impressive - micro to macro. Villa Aplontis is believed to have been the home of Nero's 2nd wife Poppea, although the original building predates even that. Aplontis is remarkable for the survival and quality of its frescos and wall paintings (mostly Greek Hellenic style), colours vivid still, and for its lavish baths and reception rooms, porticos and peristyles, courtyards and statues. It enabled you to really imagine the life of its occupants.

Next day, we took the "Circumvesuviana" train to Herculaneum (Ercolano locally, named after Hercules) which was my favourite. A small town (founded around 4th C BC) whose inhabitants had sufficient warning of the eruption to enable them to flee to the coast (although 300 remains were discovered near the beach in late 20th C). Away from the wind, Herc suffered not the ash of Pompeii, but pyroclastic flow and high temperatures, all of which served to carbonise wood and suck the air and moisture out of everything, enabling the buildings to be largely intact. Wooden beams can still be seen and upper floors are still extant, it means you can follow the streets and imagine the houses. It is intimate and of manageable scale, elegant with open spaces and vineyard - a place for the intelligentsia (Epicure's favourite spot for philosophical studies!). You can walk into and around the buildings, where grand villas sit side by side more humble homes, and shops and bodegas. And many of the wall decorations with the vivid reds and ochres are still there as well as beautiful mosaic floors.

That was morning. Lunch, then we took a bus as far as one can up Vesuvius, to walk the last half hour up to the crater's rim. It was a steep, long, hot climb - feet, ankles and shoes covered with a thick layer of volcanic ash. The view from the top c. 1200m was wonderful, across the bay of Naples to Ischia and Capri and across the plains. The crater is about 1000m across we figured and one could look down into the caldera. It hasn't had an eruption since 1944, but there was one little puff of smoke visible.

And then Wednesday, we took the little train the other way to Pompeii. It is absolutely vast - a big city. We were glad to have seen "Herc" first or this would have been overwhelming. Here you cannot take in the detail, you have to go for the grand scheme of things, the wide avenues, the smaller side streets, the bakers and bodegas again, the fullers (wool laboratories, for separating, cleaning and dyeing - as soap was not yet around, they used soda and urine to clean and degrease the wool). And the large basilicas, the market place, the theatres (one Grande, one Piccolo) and the Quadriporticus of the theatres (for intermission time), and the forum with its granary and administrative buildings and meeting places, and the temples (eg Temple of Venus, of Jupiter, etc) and central baths and suburban baths, the amphitheatre, 3 necropoli. And of course the individual houses and villas (House of Apollo, House of the Faun, of the Tragic Poet) and so on. In Pompeii, in the main, you are not allowed in individual houses as in Herculaneum, so you have to peer in from the streets. Except for a few of the larger villas with lovely inner courtyards and gardens. And a few of the bodies - mostly plaster casts thankfully - but there were a few actual poor souls and I felt uncomfortable about that and hoped their souls forgave us the indignity of being gawped at.
We were there all day and still felt we had not seen it all. Did not get "home" until after 7pm - a long, very hot and awe inspiring day. We are very glad we came and saw all three sites. Quick now, let's get out of the heat and head offshore again! Capri?