Sagrantino Ballooning Trip 2019 - Pompeii      7th August:

    Today was going to be a long excursion day. Dan had organised a trip to Pompeii and Vesuvius, both a few hours drive from Rome. We arose at the crack of dawn, went down to the hotel reception and asked reception if they could organise a taxi for us. The receptionist pressed a button, and pointed to the hotel entrance saying, "Your taxi will arrive shortly." We walked to the entrance, and exited just as our taxi stopped directly in front of us. How efficient is that! A pool of taxis is always waiting at the hotel.
    We alighted at Piazza del Popolo, grabbed a quick coffee and croissant, and ambled across the square to meet our tour guide. He was a young, affable chap who had studied linguistics, translated, and also acted as a tour guide for 8 years.
    Soon a large group of various nationalities was following the lad up to Viale Giorgo Washington, where we completely filled a coach, which whisked us up through the large park of Villa Borghese, and then out through the urban sprawl of Rome onto the E45. With a length of about 5,190 km (3,225 mi), the European Route E45 is among the longest north-south highways in Europe, stretching between Alta in northern Norway to Gela in southern Italy, passing through Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Austria. The Kattegat strait between Fredrikshavn and Gothenburg provides the link between Denmark and Sweden. While the term "E45" is in official use throughout its route, labelling and popular perception will often use national designators, especially in Germany. In this trip I had already travelled along the E45 on the Brenner Autobahn A13, Innsbruck-Italian border and on the motorway to Todi in Umbria.
    As we sped along, our guide gave us an account of the history of Italy and Rome, a description of the region we were passing through, and a working knowledge of pizzas. I had never heard of the concept of white and red pizzas before. Pizzas have been around for quite a long time, but before tomatoes were introduced into Italy from South America (Peru, specifically) by the Spanish Conquistadors in the early to mid-16th century, all pizzas were white, basically ham and cheese. As for the Margherita pizza, a story often recounted holds that on June 11th, 1889, to honour the Queen consort of Italy, Margherita of Savoy, the Neapolitan pizza maker Raffaele Esposito created the "Pizza Margherita", a pizza garnished with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil, to represent the national colours of Italy as on the Flag of Italy.

Montecassino with Abbey Perched at the Very Top

    To break up the three hour journey, we took a pit-stop in the shadow of Monte Cassino. Dramatically located in the mountains of Lazio, the beautiful Abbey of Montecassino is perched on the mountain top above the town of Cassino. It was the first monastery of the Benedictine Order, being established in 529AD by Saint Benedict of Nursia, the patron saint of Europe, who is considered the founder of monasticism in the West. As was common in the early days of Christianity, the abbey was built over a pagan site, in this case on the ruins of a Roman temple to Apollo. The monastery became known as a centre of culture, art, and learning. In the nearly 1,500 years since then, Montecassino Abbey has experienced more than its fair share of traumatic events.
    In 1944, during World War II, the abbey was the site of one of the most tragic battles of the European theatre of the war. The Allies mistakenly suspected that German troops were hiding inside the abbey and heavily bombarded the monastery, which actually housed many civilians who had sought refuge inside the building. The Battle of Monte Cassino was a turning point in the war, but at an incredibly high cost-in addition to the loss of the abbey itself, more than 55,000 Allied troops and more than 20,000 German troops, as well as countless civilians, lost their lives.
    After the war, Montecassino Abbey was rebuilt for the final time. Fortunately most of its artefacts, including priceless illuminated manuscripts, had been moved to the Vatican in Rome for safekeeping during the war. The abbey was carefully reconstructed following the original plan and its treasures restored. It was reopened by Pope VI in 1964. It is a working monastery and active pilgrimage site, housing the remains of Saint Benedict and his twin sister, Saint Scholastica, which have managed to survive the events of the abbey's long and turbulent history.
    As we continued our journey, our guide was keen to point out the Appian Way as we crossed it. This ancient road connected Rome to Brindisi, in southeast Italy. The road is named after Appius Claudius Caecus, the Roman censor who began and completed the first section as a military road to the south in 312BC during the Samnite Wars.
    We then received a lecture on Pompeii before we skirted around Naples, with its high-rise buildings. Because the region is prone to earthquakes, many of these buildings were designed by a Japanese company, the Japanese having experience of building high-rise towers in earthquake prone Japan. The lad informed us that there are hardly any high-rise buildings in Rome - nothing is allowed to be built taller that St. Peter's Basilica dome.
    16 miles south-east of Naples, we finally arrived at Pompeii. Here we were split into two groups of 25 people each, and our group was put under the guidance on a Pompeii expert, Bernadette. The lady did not waste any time, but took us immediately into the Quadriporticus of the theatres or Gladiators Barracks, where she proceeded to tell the story of Pompeii.
    The many ghostly and well-preserved ruins of ancient Pompeii (Pompeii in Italian) make for one of the world's most-visited and engrossing archaeological experiences. Much of the site's value lies in the fact that the town wasn't simply blown away by Vesuvius in AD79, but buried under a layer of lapilli (burning fragments of pumice stone). The result is a remarkably well-preserved slice of ancient life, where visitors can walk down Roman streets and snoop around millennia-old houses, temples, shops, cafes, amphitheatres and even a brothel. The ancient site was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997, an excellent repository of details on quotidian life during Antiquity.
    Although the Osci Tribe originally founded it, Greek settlers made the town part of the Hellenistic sphere in the 8th century BC. An independently-minded town, it fell under the influence of Rome in the 2nd century BC during the Peninsula's Social War, transforming it into a Roman Colony and naming it Cornelia Venera Pompeiana. Eventually the Bay of Naples became an attraction for wealthy vacationers from Rome who relished the Campania coastline.
    By the turn of the 1st century AD, the town of Pompeii, located about five miles from the mountain, was a flourishing resort for Rome's most distinguished citizens. Elegant houses and elaborate villas lined the paved streets. Tourists, townspeople and slaves bustled in and out of small factories and artisans' shops, taverns and cafes, and brothels and bathhouses. People gathered in the 20,000-seat arena and lounged in the open-air squares and marketplaces.
    In AD62, a mere 17 years before Vesuvius erupted, the city was struck by a major earthquake. Damage was widespread and much of the city's 20,000-strong population was evacuated. Villagers around the volcano had long learned to live with their volatile environment, and despite the massive earthquake providing a warning rumble of the disaster to come, people still flocked to the shores of the Bay of Naples. Pompeii grew more crowded every year.

Gladiators Barracks

    On the eve of that fateful eruption in 79AD, scholars estimate that of the 20,000-strong original population before the earthquake, there were only about 12,000 people living in Pompeii and almost as many in the surrounding region. Partly-destroyed by the earthquake in 62AD, the entire city and its splendid suburban villas did not last long enough to see complete reconstruction.
    In August 79AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted again. The blast sent a plume of ashes, pumice and other rocks, and scorching-hot volcanic gases so high into the sky that people could see it for hundreds of miles around. (The writer Pliny the Younger, who watched the eruption from across the bay, compared this "cloud of unusual size and appearance" to a pine tree that "rose to a great height on a sort of trunk and then split off into branches"; today, geologists refer to this type of volcano as a "Plinean eruption.") As it cooled, this tower of debris drifted to earth: first the fine-grained ash, then the lightweight chunks of pumice and other rocks. It was terrifying-"I believed I was perishing with the world," Pliny wrote, "and the world with me"-but not yet lethal. Most Pompeiians had plenty of time to flee. For those who stayed behind, however, conditions soon grew worse. As more and more ash fell, it clogged the air, making it difficult to breathe. Buildings collapsed. Then, a "pyroclastic surge"-a 100-miles-per-hour surge of superheated poison gas and pulverized rock-poured down the side of the mountain and swallowed everything and everyone in its path. By the time the Vesuvius eruption sputtered to an end the next day, Pompeii was buried under millions of tons of volcanic ash. About 2,000 Pompeiians were dead, but the eruption killed as many as 16,000 people overall. Some people drifted back to town in search of lost relatives or belongings, but there was not much left to find. Pompeii, along with the neighbouring town of Herculaneum and a number of villas in the area, was abandoned for centuries.

Large Theatre

    After its catastrophic demise, Pompeii receded from the public eye until 1594, when the architect Domenico Fontana stumbled across the ruins while digging a canal. No one undertook follow-up explorations until 1748, despite the general interest in antiquity and rudimentary archaeology at the time. A group of explorers looking for ancient artefacts arrived in Campania and began to dig. They found that the ashes had acted as a marvellous preservative: Underneath all that dust, Pompeii was almost exactly as it had been almost 2,000 years before. Its buildings were intact. Skeletons were frozen right where they'd fallen. Everyday objects and household goods littered the streets. Later archaeologists even uncovered jars of preserved fruit and loaves of bread! Of Pompeii's original 66 hectares, 44 have now been excavated. Today, the excavation of Pompeii has been going on for almost three centuries, and scholars and tourists remain just as fascinated by the city's eerie ruins as they were in the 18th century.

Pompeii Streets

Street Stepping Stones - Drain Covers are Modern

    Now, well informed by Bernadette, she started her tour proper by describing the Quadriporticus of the theatres or Gladiators Barracks where we stood. Standing behind the scene of the Large Theatre, the Gladiators Barracks is a large quadrangle surrounded by 74 Doric grey tuff columns of Nocera used as a foyer, an area where the spectators could stop during the intervals of the theatre shows. After the earthquake of 62AD the building changed its function and became a barracks for gladiators, which resulted in certain parts of the building being reorganised. The most important rooms were those on the eastern side. The rooms upstairs may have been the apartments of the undertaker of the gladiators. Weapons used in the parades that preceded the battles were found in two wooden boxes. They are now kept in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. Many victims were found here, such as skeletons of 4 slaves, 18 of free men, and a woman with a very rich collection of jewels.
    We then walked to the adjacent Large Theatre. It was built by exploiting the natural slope of the hill for the construction of the auditorium. The staircase was separated into three areas with corridors, which were in turn divided into five sectors, and was based on a passage with a barrel vault. It was built around the middle of the 2nd century BC and significantly restored according to the Roman style. An inscription is visible at the entrance of the corridor that provides access to the east. That is one of the very few representations known with reference to the name of the architects, and recalls the works carried out in the Augustan age by Marcus Artorius Primus. These works concern the scene and the stage, the adoption of the velarium, a large tarp used as a cover for the warmer days and the numbering of the seats. In the theatre they presented comedies and tragedies of Greek-Roman tradition. The theatre was the first large public building completely freed from the deposits of the eruption.

Stabian Baths - Note the Cavity Walls in the Hot Bath

    We then took a walk down typical streets. Many streets had rut marks created by the wheels of carriages and carts. Some streets even had stepping stones crossing them. These stones allowed pedestrians to cross the streets without getting their feet wet or dirty. The gaps between the stones were wide enough to allow cart wheels through, but also get deliberately narrow so as to act as speed limiters by forcing horses to walk through the narrow gaps.

    A walk in the blistering brought us to the Stabian Baths. These occupy a vast area between the Brothel lane, the Holconius crossroads and the Via Stabiana. They represent the oldest thermal complex in the city. In fact they were built at the time of Pompeii's subjugation to Rome and were subsequently extended and decorated on more than one occasion to answer more adequately the needs of the growing population. The original construction, situated in the northern part of the building beyond the colonnades, is from the Samnite period. The more recent part - dating back to the renovation of the Roman age - overlooks the western side: it is organized according to more modern and functional criteria.

Lupanar Beds Were Not Exactly Built for Comfort, But the Straw Would Have Helped

Some of the Services on Offer

Phallic Symbols as Direction Indicators

    The thermal complex consists of a well-constructed system of baths distributed around a central area used as a gymnasium and characterized by a colonnade ranged round three sides of the building. The Stabian Baths are composed of three parts: the rooms in the north section, those mentioned above as being the oldest, contain a series of latrines. The second section consists of a group of private baths situated behind the northern colonnade. The third section is located in the eastern part: it is made up of changing rooms, a vestibule - with magnificent plaster decoration - rooms for the cold bath (frigidarium), for the tepid bath (tepidarium) and for the hot bath ((alidarium).

Another Fountain

Beautiful Mosaics

    The Thermal Baths are rigidly divided between the area set aside for men and the area set aside for women. Both are organized in the same way, but the female section is more simple and less decorated. A pool occupies the western side of the Baths. The rooms are frequently adorned with stuccos of fine workmanship and certainly among the most beautiful in Pompeian art. It is also possible to identify the system used to heat and cool the various rooms, which was achieved by pipes carrying air and water of varying temperature through the cavities in the walls. In the third section the public baths are equipped with a pool and rooms used for practising gymnastic activities.
    As we carried on walking Bernadette pointed out some of the kerb stones had holes carved through them. These probably served as points where horse reins could be tethered. Also, fountains were scattered among the streets, each having a unique appearance. In its heyday Pompeii would not have had street names, so it is thought that strangers would have been directed to a location using fountains as signposts, rather similar I guess to some folk navigating via pub names.

Equestrian Statue in the Forum

    A street we were walking down narrowed, there was a people jam in front. Who would have guessed it, they were all queueing up to enter the Lupanar. The building derived its name from lupa, a Latin word meaning "prostitute". It was of course a brothel. The prostitutes in the brothel were mostly Greek and Oriental slaves who were paid between two and eight Asses (a glass of wine cost one Ass) for their services. The building has two floors. The homes of the owner and the slaves are at the top and there are five rooms at the bottom, all fitted with a built-in bed, on both sides of the corridor that connects the two entrances of the ground floor. The rooms were closed by a curtain. A latrine is seen at the end of the corridor, under the staircase. Small paintings with erotic depictions on the walls of the central corridor informed customers of the activities that took place within the Lupanar.
    Bernadette pointed out some more street markers. These took the form of phallic symbols inlaid into the roadway, or carved on the corners of walls, all pointing towards the Lupanar.
    Our journey took us down more streets, and then lo and behold we were in a large square, the Forum. The Civil Forum is the core of daily life of the city and is the focal point of all the main public buildings for city administration and justice, business management, and trade activities such as markets, as well as the main places of citizen worship. The square of the Forum originally looked like a simple open area with an overall regular shape, made of clay and its western side opened on to the Sanctuary of Apollo, whereas the eastern side had a row of shops. The Forum was significantly modified between the 3rd and 2nd century BC when the shape of the square was regularised, surrounded by porticoes and the bottom paved with slabs of tuff. The axis of the square became the façade of the Temple of Jupiter, aligned with Mount Vesuvius. At the beginning of the Imperial age the Forum was re-paved with travertine slabs, some of which are no longer in their original location and have a groove to accommodate the bronze letters that belonged to a large inscription. Excavations that began upon the requests of Maria Carolina Bonaparte immediately indicated that the area had been explored and stripped of its decorations in ancient times.

Forum with Temple of Jupiter Infront of Vesuvius

Forum Granary on the Right

    The Temple of Jupiter dominates the north side of the Forum, with Mount Vesuvius scenically rising behind. When the colony was founded in 80BC, the temple underwent a radical renovation and became a real Capitolium with the three cult statues of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, which looked like those of the Capitolium in Rome, placed on a high base so as to make them visible to whoever passed in the Forum square. The new works extended the cell of the temple, in which a rich mosaic floor with marble elements was laid. The favissae open within the basis, and are underground areas originally used for the offerings to the gods. According to some studies, in time they probably protected the public treasury of the city. There were two equestrian statues on the sides of the basis of the Capitolium, as evidenced by the relief found in the lararium of the house of Lucio Cecilio Giocondo.
    Bernadette allowed us a short while to wander around the Forum and explore for ourselves.

Forum Granary Exhibits - Plaster Casts Include a Person Covering Their Face, a 3 Year Old and a Dog

Intrepid Travellers

    I wandered across to the Forum Granary. This stretched on the western side of the Forum with eight openings separated by brick pillars, used for the fruit and vegetable market (Forum Holitorium). Today they form the greatest archaeological inventory of the city and have more than 9000 artefacts from the excavations in Pompeii and its territory since the end of the 19th century. They preserve the terracotta crockery that was used in the last decades of life of the city for everyday activities, such as pots and pans for cooking, jugs and bottles, and amphorae, large containers used to transport oil, wine and fish sauce throughout the Mediterranean. The exhibited items also include marble tables and baths for fountains that adorned the entrances of houses and some casts of victims of the eruption as well as that of a dog and a tree. The building was built after the earthquake of 62AD and it might have not been completed at the time of the eruption.

Sanctuary of Venus

    The time came to leave the Forum, and we slowly headed across to the Sanctuary of Venus. The Sanctuary of Venus is placed on spectacular artificial terrace that offers great views of the Gulf of Naples, overlooking the bay where the harbour was to be situated. Venus was the patron goddess of Pompeii, to whom the colony was named upon conclusion, 80BC, already worshiped in pre-Roman times and later was patron goddess of sailing. The earthquake of 62AD and those that followed up to the eruption, caused the destruction of the temple whose reconstruction had not yet been completed in 79AD. The first sanctuary dates back to the 2nd century BC and consisted of a space surrounded by porticoes at the centre of which stood the temple. That which can be seen today dates back to the early imperial age. A large gold lamp weighing 896 grams was found during the 19th century excavations, in a small provisional chapel leaning against the bottom of the cell of the temple, which was a gift of Emperor Nero, and is now found at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.

Relentless Climb Up Vesuvius

    We wound our way down a stairway, our guided tour was over. We all thanked Bernadette for her excellent tour, she had been very knowledgeable and witty. I had enjoyed the tour, even though we had only seen a small portion of this vast site. Pompeii is impressive from the sheer scale viewpoint, but it would take days to cover it all. Herculaneum is a much smaller site, and could be covered in a day. I have heard that since the excavations at Herculaneum were carried out much later than those of Pompeii, the techniques adopted allowed the "atmosphere" of the event to be better preserved, imparting a closeness to the visitor. I have friends, who had visited both, but when we all visited a Pompeii exhibition at the O2 in London a few years earlier, their comments were that the exhibition conveyed an even more intense feeling for the event. Nevertheless, I was overjoyed that I had visited this historic site.
    Our coach party was then whisked off to a nearby pizzeria (there were dozens of them catering for the tourist trade). The menu was simple, white or red pizzas. We shared a table with a Danish couple who were wrapped up in a world of their own.
    Once amply loaded up with calories, our coach whisked us off for the second event of the day, Mount Vesuvius. Once out of the mayhem of hundreds of coaches and thousands of tourists crawling all over dozens of pizzerias, we sped along with the Bay of Naples occasionally peeping through on our left side. To our right Vesuvius reared up at an alarmingly steep angle. Our guide gave us a running documentary on the colossal structure while most of his captive audience just stared out of the windows with open mouths.
    Soon our coach began a relentless climb through narrow roads traversing small towns and villages. These roads were not designed for large coaches, and much Italian cursing took place between drivers as coaches met head on in this urban sprawl. Eventually buildings gave way to vineyards and orchards; the wine grown there is known as Lacrima Christi (Latin for "tears of Christ"). We slowly wound our way through endless switchbacks. The slopes were now covered with copses of oak and chestnut and vast lava fields, soon giving way to undulating plateaus covered with broom. Now glimpses of the vast bay and Naples were more prolonged. We left all the cars behind about 350m from the crater, only coaches and public busses were allowed to the road's end a further 100m up. It was literally a road-end - no coach park, no large turning circle, just chaos for coach drivers. Those poor chaps had to somehow turn their coaches around after depositing their passengers, and drive back down the road and park on the side of the narrow road where they could.

    Gone is the funicular railway to the top, and the commercial exploitation, Vesuvius now has in its place nature trails, preservation of fauna and local culture as the focus. Nine such trails exist, and we were about to climb one of them. Our guide gave us instructions as we alighted as to what we would expect as we climbed up to the crater, and we were allowed 70 minutes to walk the final 600m to the crater and back. To access the trail to the top we had to push our way through an official ticket desk/building and a shanty town of bars, restaurants and tourist tat before you get to the entrance to the track.

Vesuvius Crater

Crater Aerial View

    It was a grind up a wide gravel path. The path is not steep, but it's relentless, and we needed a rest or two along the way. An endless procession of people of all ages and sizes skipped or plodded their way up and down the track. It was gravel to start with, but soon replaced by scoria, a type of volcanic output that I had first come across in 2011 when climbing the Mount Taranaki in New Zealand. This is not the easiest of surfaces to climb up, and worse to climb down due to its ease at giving way and sliding down with you.
    Slowly climbing up gave me time to reflect on what Vesuvius was. Rising above the Bay of Naples on the plain of Campania in southern Italy, its western base rests almost upon the bay. Its height varies considerably after each major eruption, the cone in 2013 rising to 1,281m. At about 600m, a high semi-circular ridge, called Mount Somma, begins, girding the cone on the north and rising to 1,132m. Between Mount Somma and the cone is the Valle del Gigante (Giant's Valley). At the summit of the cone is a large crater about 305m deep and 610m across; it was formed in the eruption of 1944.
    Geologically speaking, Vesuvius is part of the Campanian volcanic arc, a line of volcanoes that formed over a subduction zone created by the convergence of the African and Eurasian plates. This subduction zone stretches the length of the Italian peninsula, and is also the source of other volcanoes like Mount Etna, the Phlegraean Fields (Campi Flegrei), Vulcano, and Stromboli. Under Vesuvius, the lower part of the subducting slab has torn and detached from the upper part to form what is called a "slab window." This makes Vesuvius' rocks slightly different chemically from the rocks erupted from the other Campanian volcanoes. Mount Vesuvius sits on top of a layer of magma deep in the earth that measures 154 square miles.

We Made It

    The last time Vesuvius activated was in 1944, causing minor damage and killing 26 people. New research has shown that the mountain probably will not act as kindly next time. Considered one of the world's most dangerous, it is also the only active volcano on Europe's mainland. Nevertheless, it is just 6 miles from the modern city of Naples, and 600,000 people live in the 18 towns at its base that comprise the "red zone." The red zone denotes the populated area that would bear the brunt of an ­eruption. Directly in the line of fire, the 9-mile radius of people stand little chance of survival when Vesuvius explodes again.
    Because of the imminent, and unpredictable, threat, the Italian government devised an evacuation plan to clear out the red zone 72 hours ahead of an impending eruption. Beginning in 2004, the government also set up a program to pay people 30,000 Euros to relocate outside of the zone, though it has had relatively few takers. Experts warn that emergency plans should also include nearby Naples since an explosion could send dangerous burning ash and pumice as far as 12 miles.
    Back to our climb. The heat was merciless, and we frequently gulped refreshing water. The path gradually narrowed and there were a few staircases to negotiate. Towards the summit it gradually circled the edge of the crater to the other side. There were a few vantage points to stare down into the gaping crater, created in 1944. Strata of red, yellow and grey rocks climbed from the depression. Boulders and ash littered the bottom - a snoozing giant. Various scientific instruments were visible around the crater, continuously monitoring the snoring and twitching of the giant, ready to warn authorities of imminent danger.

Port of Naples

    Turning around - what a contrast. The Bay of Naples glistened out to the horizon. This semi-circular inlet of the Tyrrhenian Sea (an arm of the Mediterranean Sea), is 10 miles wide and extends south-eastward for 20 miles from Cape Miseno to Campanella Point. It is flanked to the south with the Sorennto Peninsula, and 6 miles to the north the sprawling city of Naples, with mighty cruise ships berthed in the docks, and numerous small ferries scurrying like water-beetles across the bay to the islands of Capri, Ischia and Procido, sat like jewels in the jaws of the bay. It was a marvellous sight to behold; I could have spent hours soaking it all up. It had been a hard climb, but well worth it.

Capri

    But our allotted time was running out, and sadly we set off back down to marshal forces with our fellow passengers and board our coach. I had to use the toilets back at the entrance. I had seen one man enter and leave immediately, but for me, if you've got to go you've got to go. Hmmm .... an out of this world experience!
    Our journey back was uneventful, just a comfort break at Monte Cassino to relieve the monotony, but I managed to catch up on my notes.
    In the evening, we dined at a restaurant in Piazza della Rotunda next to the Pantheon in the evening, pasta with a fine Shiraz from Lazio - Bliss!

Return to Piazza del Popolo

A Well Deserved Drink