Naples and Pompeii

Naples can best be described as "pretty grotty".  It was hot, dirty and unkempt.  Basically the people seemed just not to care.  Even the people at the tourist information centre at the station could only give us a map and push us out the door.  The city itself has a lot to offer with museums, churches and proximity to fantastic places like Pompeii, Vesuvius, Capri and the stunning coastal areas of  Amalfi, Positano and Sorrento.  It is a place with so much potential to be a "shining jewel" but doesn't really get there.

We arrived at Napoli Centrale/Garibaldi station on time at 11am Tuesday and walked the few blocks to the 3* Hotel San Giorgio which was pretty much what we expected.  After settling in we started to explore the city and walked to the cruise ship terminal.  Everything here seems to be geared towards these huge floating hotels - and there were plenty of them berthed at the port.  The Harbour is overlooked by the Castel Nuovo, a castle complete with towers and battlements.  Higher up on the top of the hill, accessible by funicular railway, the Castel Sant'Elmo overlooks the City of Naples.  It was hot and sweaty work walking around - the temperature climbed to 42C as we made our way back to the hotel with plenty of stops for drinks and sit-downs in the shade.

After our day of R&R on Wednesday, Robert was recovered enough for us to catch the train to Pompeii to see the ruins there.  We caught the local Circumvesuvio Line train for the 30 minute trip with many other tourists.  There are no signs to this line (or to Pompeii for that matter) until we got to the actual line and we took a while to find it deep underground at the station.  This train goes every 30 minutes and travels between Napoli-Garibaldi and Sorrento to the south around the base of the huge active volcano Vesuvius.  This mountain is an imposing presence in the region.  We will never complain about graffiti on trains and railway stations in Australia again after seeing it here.  We don't think it has ever been cleaned off and many trains, stations, walls and tunnels are just covered.  Many of the stations have their name signs covered so we had to guess where we were.  In some rare cases the graffiti is genuine "street art" but on the whole it's just "tagging" and confirms our overall impression.

We picked a great day for this excursion.  After the intense heat of the last couple of days, Thursday was cooler, about 30C, with the promise of a storm and some cooling rain.  We hired audio guides (10 euros for 2) and joined the queue for our tickets (11 euros each).

An earthquake in 62AD caused a lot of damage to the thriving Roman city of Pompeii and much of this damage was still being repaired when the eruption of 79AD destroyed the city, all living things and the nearby coastal town of Herculaneum.  People died instantly where they were standing/sitting/lying as the city was first consumed by the poisonous superheated gas and dust of the iconoclastic flow and then covered by volcanic ash.  The buried city was discovered purely by chance in 1748.  Most of the city has now been excavated, however there is still a lot of archaeological work going on there.  This site has given a rare insight into the day to day life of first century Romans.

We walked down the streets walked by these people 2,000 years ago and we were able to enter their houses, baths and gardens.  Most of the mosaics, artefacts and bodies are now housed in the museum in Naples.  Our cameras worked overtime (again) as we walked around.  There were plenty of places to sit when we got too hot, although we found some of the buildings airless when there were too many people inside as happened from time to time when we happened to clash with the cruise ship tour groups.

We walked through the Temple of Apollo with its statues of Apollo and Diana facing each other.  We saw houses with their intricate mosaic floors and wall frescoes still intact and remaining bright after all these years.  The baths provided both a steam room and hot running water with bathing rooms for both men and women.

The House of the Fawn with it's statue of a fawn in the courtyard was the largest house in Pompeii with a large atrium garden - the lady of the house was discovered complete and adorned with her jewellery during excavations. The enormous Forum was the centre of life in the city with main streets leading to it.  No statues were found in the Forum, although there were plenty of plinths because they had been removed following the 62AD earthquake and not yet returned before Vesuvius erupted in 79AD.  After about 2 1/2 hours we were hit by a thunderstorm so we made our way back to the station in cooling rain and from there back to Naples.

Later in the afternoon we walked through the old city of Naples to find the Capella Sansevero which we wanted to visit.  We found a nice piazza where Cherryl had a salad of fresh oranges, thinly sliced onions and olive oil for dinner - delicious.  The Capella was closed so we'll be back tomorrow.  Then we walked back through the shopping streets to the San Giorgio.

Thursday morning we have a few hours to spare for some sightseeing before we need to catch our train back to Rome at 13:50 so it's off to the Capella Sansevero (www.museosansevero.it/) for a visit.  This is a WOW!! place and should be on everyone's list of places to see.  It's a mausoleum which was built as a chapel by a 16th century Duke (John Francesco di Sangro, Duke of Torremaggiore) and was converted to a family mausoleum in the 17th century by Alessandro di Sangro and then further developed by Raimondo di Sangro, Prince of Sansevero.  Most of the sculptures were done in the 18th century.  The painting of the ceiling is amazing with one section painted to look as if it is actually a dome.  The 3D effect really had us looking hard to make sure it was all a painting.  The sculpture of the Veiled Christ, which is the centrepiece of the chapel, had us looking carefully to make sure that there really wasn't a fine cloth veil covering the body - it really is all sculpted from marble, and it took Guiseppe Sanmartino a year to complete.  The other sculpture that blew us away was Queirolo's Disillusion with it's fishing net that looks like it will fold up in your hand.  There are also two anatomical exhibits, one each of a man and a woman, showing their skeletons and circulatory systems in minute detail with the red arteries and blue veins constructed of beeswax, iron-wire and silk.

As we walked back down the hill we called in to the Santa Maria delle anime del Purgatorio ad Arco Museum.  This complex of church/museum/lower church was established by the ancient cult of the Souls in Purgatory which was established in 1605 by a group of noblemen to take care of the Souls in Purgatory.  The church has many fine paintings and sculptures.  Unfortunately the museum, which houses the crowned skull of Santa Lucia (the patron saint of brides) was closed as it's undergoing renovation work.  Although banned, the cult still conducts services to save the souls.

A little further on we came to the Pio Monte della Misercordiae, a complex with a church and art museum.  The church has a painting by Caravaggio which is regarded as one of his best works - The Seven Works of Mercy painted in 1607.  The 7 acts of mercy are: bury the dead, visit the imprisoned, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, clothe the naked and give drinks to the thirsty.  The painting was initially going to be 7 different works but Caravaggio's masterpiece is that he was able to combine them into one painting.  This complex is also a gallery with many renaissance paintings and a special exhibition of scenes and landscapes around Naples by artists from the 19th century to modern times.

On our way back to the hotel to pick up our bags, Cherryl was victim of an attempted bag-snatch when a motorcyclist rode close to her, grabbed her bag and flipped it over his handlebars and sped off.  The bag was well anchored and she hung on so she was pulled over onto the road (luckily it was a pedestrian and scooter only road) and he let go and sped off before he was pulled off his scooter.  Lucky for us the only damage was a broken clip on the bag and Cherryl was a bit shaken.  A pity because it left a bad impression of this city and reinforced everything we had seen and been told about safety here.  Naples certainly is a city of contrasts with beautiful buildings, sculptures and artwork often tempered by a lack of civic pride, living in the shadow of a sleeping giant.

We picked up our bags from the Hotel Giorgio and headed for the station to catch the train back to Rome where we checked back into the Hotel Corona for our final 4 nights in Italy.