Back in the bus this morning, travelling to Pompeii. This means we get to see Vesuvius! (not close enough to hike up, unfortunately) Looking forward to touring the site - hoping we can see both the art at Herculanium (beautiful mosaics) and the lithified bodies at Pompeii.
Mr. Bartlett has set up a group spotify, so we're getting random music choices from all over the group.
LOVE the landscape. My pictures are never going to do it justice. There are rolling valleys, mountains about the size of our blue Ridge, terraced farming, mountiantop villages with stucko sides & orange tiled roofs. Lanscape is covered with the umbrella pines, pipe-cleaner cedars, and the poplars. Personal vegetable gardens, vineyards, and olive trees in cultivation. For not the first time I wish I could just be here to live for a while with the people. Rent a villa for a month and enjoy the life - it will be cooler today again. Yesterday the highs were around 90, and similar today. This is really perfect weather for anyone, I think.
Interesting artistic structure we passed by on the road, it looked like a wave. A we moved past it the wave changed shape - we could see different forms of the cresting wave as we passed by. I love the art. I should turn on spotify and chooose sounds of tuscany to listen to while we're driving through. That would be better than the familiar American songs from the 90s or whenever. I prefer to not be pulled back to the familiar but drown myself in the alternative reality of the present.
Unfortunately, reality (through a bit of covid) has touched the group. One of the kids who came down with heat exhaustion on the hot tour through the Colisseum & old Roma had also picked up a bit of the covid cold. They are doing well today, but tested positive. I'm wearing a mask while we're on the bus anyway. No need to tempt fate while we're in an enclosed space with questionable air circulation. This is not surprising. Everyone I know who's gone over to Europe in the last few years since travel reopened have had someone in their group pick up covid. Thankfully, since we've had the vaccines and the virality of the pathogen has dropped off, nobody's had a particularly bad case. But I've heard coughing from several sectors around the bus and Clover has had morning runny nose pretty much daily (their allergies have been a thing.
Just passed by some Solar Fields as well. It's not really charging my laptop.
Shutting down to save battery. Listening to "Carl Brave Radio" then switched to "Sarah Toscano Radio." I think I'm going to play Italian pop during work times in class this year. Kids can get exposure to internatoinal flavor without being too distracted, hopefully.
Above: Nearby mountains Monti Aurunci (Truck stop we made this morning)
- Research on history of Vesuvius eruptions.
- Text from Pliny the Younger letters about 79AD Vesuvius Eruption (worth reading and not too long).
Pompeii Tour
We began with a Cameo Tour - I thought I'd already written about that, but apparently I forgot. They explained how they take conch shells, temporarily paste a sample image underneath on a pedestal then shine a light through to carve off the white, calcified part of the shell on top. What is visible underneath is the pearlescent surface that shows through. I really had never thought about how cameos were made before (nor that they're from Italy). It's a beautiful art.
Also - LOVE the bathroom stalls in the Cameo shop!
POMPEII!
I took a lot of notes (and even more pictures) while touring Pompeii this afternoon. So the basics - Vesuvieus' last eruption was in 1944, previous eruption was 1872 (72 years before). In 1998 150 died from rain saturation of previous debris, creating a flow (this is from Rick Steve's Italy Tour book - published 2022). Three million people live near Vesuvius today. This area is called the "Campi Flegrei" - Fields of fire.
The Areaological dig site includes 165 acres. Prior to the 79AD eruption, there were probably tremors that cats noticed (because there have been no cat remains found on site, but there are MANY strays & wildcats today. Prior to the 79 eruption there was one peak, but now there are 2 (Mr. Bartlet & I had a very intense discussion on this topic & looked up some topo maps to evaluate). The location of the caldera is atop the left peak (from the view of Vesuvius) - but that is the Caldera from the 1944 eruption. I am in agreement with Mr. Barlet that the right-most peak that is separate from the main volcano itself should be considered the outer edge of the 79 caldera (though the leftmost edge may have been blown out or eroded or possibly part of the current volcanic peak).
Walking up to the Pompeii village one can catch the drift of Oleander, which covers the grounds. It's a poisonous plant, but as long as you keep dogs and children away from it, they should be fine. It does make me wonder if they are the reason why there are so few squirrels in Italy (this is much to Clover's disappointment)
In the amphitheater district there is a lobby, bathroom and stalls for shopping or fast food for the show. There were 72 pillars to suppot the roof & poricos. Everything would have been covered with plaster (Rick Steve's says it's a Marble Plaster, but our tour director doesn't specify, but does indicate it would have been painted after plastering). Seating in the theater would have held about 2000 people. (sorry there's not a great picture of this - they're renovating it so it can be used for concerts & things - not 100% sure the renovation of an archaeological location is kosher, but it's not my place to jump on that soapbox - you can see the REALLY nice marble seats that have been put in, along with the excavated seating.
Men would have been about 5'5" and women about 4' 10". There are probably smaller than today due to dietary changes (we get more protein). (pictures from the museum at end of tour - plaster casts were made in the empty spaces found as excavation was taking place - these empty spaces under debris were where the bodies had decomposed following the ash deposits of the eruption)
Roads were used to drain sewage and large rocks were placed for crosswalks to keep people out of the sewage. If you look closely, the roads are crested in the middle so that they would drain toward the edges, which would have formed something of a gutter with the raised sidewalk area. People would have dumped their chamber pots into the street each morning, which would have left a rather rank smell about all the time (Maybe they would have grown oleander to help keep the smell under control). Also noted by Rick Steves were the marble stone inlays at places, which would have provided reflective surfaces to see where the road was at night if you happened to be out after dark (and the moon or your lamp provided some light).
Botega workshops were along the main road (ex. Sandles - these were NOT Boutiques, jut regular workshops). The merchant would have lived above the shop.
A side road leads up to the red light district. A phalus points the way. Prostitutes are called "she wolves" because they wistle like wolves for their customers.
There were about 20,000 peopole living in Vesuvius at the time, though 1200 bodies were found. Others may have escaped or been rescued, but there are not first hand accounting of survivers from Vesuvius.
Pumice was ejected 32 km into the sky, which is three time as high as we flew in the airplane. Thte rocks were going very fast when they hit the ground (or people) again.
Additional pictures from the museum.
Hotel Angelo in Sorento
Very importantly, I have met the bartender, his name is Antonio and he likes doing outdoor things like hiking, mountain biking, and other exploring type things. He does not climb and he explained to me that they wanted to have a climbing competition here at some point but it did not happen. He said the people do not want to do for sport, they just want to do for enjoyment. I told him I could understand that completely.
And yes - it sounded like he was flirting - but I couldn't be too hard on him because he seemed very awkward about it and was very polite. It will always feel good to receive flirtations from a younger man - and I hope they are still doing that when I am 80. It will be flattering at any age.
Dinner was LOUD. We ate in the hotel and with 30 kids around the table (and there's something weird about the hotel accoustics or my eardrums are just getting sore - which is definitely happening - I think it was a combination of both). All of the adults are reaching the limit of our patience with being around 24-ish kids (I'm not in charge, I'm not counting - but I know they're counting up to 28 or 29 total people). I'm writing this two days later, but I think they brought us Lasagna as a starter - then I've forgotten - but white cake with yummy pudding filling and white frosting for desert. *** nope! Rigatoni in a tomato sauce & pork for dinner. Others thought it was amazing - I thought it was fine, but a bit bland.
Clover and I went out for a walk around Sorento (said Hello to Antonio on the way out & introduced him to Clover - the shock on his face that I had a child this old was priceless - he was super polite, as always). We walked down to the beach - really lovely beachfront town. There's a LOT Of graffiti here, but that seems to be the case EVERYWHERE in Italy. There's a statue of Mary wrapped in christmas lights along the turn in the road. Speaking of which - these roads are VERY narrow! We are trying to find a patron saint of Italian Bus drivers who navigate these roads (and traffic - expecialy motorcycles) so well. He didnt nudge, bump, or scrape a thing. There are cars parked along the road who can attest that not all drivers are so good. Every car parked along the road in Sorento had multiple scrapes.
We watched the sun go down.
Annnnddd..... finding our way BACK up to the hotel was not so easy..... because... we went BACK BY A DIFFERENT PATH. Bad juju. We came down by the long way, following the road and entering near the private beach, but then walked over to the public beach and went up the path that was nearer to our hotel. Which follows a LOT of switchbacks, small alleys and.... not sure what it SHOULD have been because we found ourselves above the hotel navigating alleys leading to private terraces (appologizing to their owners and backing out to look for another path), then found ourselves ALL the way back down to the Beach (my legs were DEAD at this point, my energy was low, and my patience was thin - but I followed Clover because my sense of direction was even worse than my vision without contacts).
Finally got to the hotel - significantly after dark. We found our way into our suite (Yes - we got the nice rooms with a separate closed patio and there's also a separate much larger atrium with a beautiful garden area along the path to our room). All the suites (6 in all, I think) are Full size beds and named after Angels. We were in Michael. Also slept like we were in heaven for the night.
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