Amalfi Coast and Pompeii

Day 9    Naples, Italy      Saturday, August 2, 2014

What an amazing drive down the Amalfi Coast south of Naples! And then just as amazing was seeing the ruins of Pompeii. Both were with Manuela, the funniest tour guide ever. This photo is from our lunch restaurant a few miles from Salerno, which is off in the distance.

It is hard to describe the thrill of the drive. The Amalfi Coast is steep, and our roadway was an engineering marvel that they could even build it. Driving it in a bus, and being in the front seats, made the experience ever so unbelievable and scary and awe-inspiring. Of course, the coastal views around every turn were incredible, but for me, negotiating the road with oncoming traffic and illegally parked cars, in a bus that used the entire road in turns, was the most amazing part of being on the Amalfi Coast.

Almost all my photos along the coast were from the front seat of the bus while moving. Here's just one showing how high up we were and how beautiful the bays and scenery were. This is the town of Positano.

This photo shows cars parked illegally and leaving little room for a bus. When a car or truck came the other way at a time like this, what happened? Everyone would stop and someone would back up. It happened numerous times! Manuela made jokes the entire day about how lousy her fellow Southern Italians drive and park. She said a No Parking sign was merely a "suggestion" in this part of Italy. She said you could always figure why cars were double parked or parked in a No Parking area - because a bar was open for business! When a car did something stupid coming at us, she'd pretend the wife was telling her husband that her parents were right about him and she will need to divorce him for his lousy driving. She had us laughing all day commenting on how scary the driving was.

Manuela also had us laughing about people's laundry. Throughout Europe, laundry is hung out to dry. She made a point of explaining how just about everything you need to know about someone can be figured out on laundry day. For example, you can ascertain how many people live in the home, the age of the children and the weight of the adults! And you can tell what kind of a homemaker the wife is, Manuela explained, for example if the sheets were really white enough. The wife was neat and tidy if she hung underwear uniformly closest to the home so it would not be exposed. Every time we went by laundry hanging up, she took time to do a quick analysis of the family, which we found quite entertaining.

This is the village of Praiano about a third of the way down the coast to Salerno. The roadway would gradually descend into the towns and then go back up high again once past it.

They sure figure a way to build right up the cliffs.

One of many fancy hotels perched on cliffs with great views. At this point we were approaching the town of Amalfi.

We went through small tunnels like this fairly often. Only one vehicle in the tunnel at a time! Hope those steep walls hold up and no earthquakes!

I'm glad we were sitting in the front of the bus, to get views like this. Sure, lots of my photos have the bus's rearview mirror in them, but what the heck?

We stopped to explore the town of Amalfi. It had a lot of history, having been "on the map" as early as the 6th century BC. From the 9th to 14th centuries, Amalfi was powerful enough to be a sovereign republic similar to Florence, Pisa, Genoa and Venice. Its crowning glory is the 10th-century cathedral dedicated to St. Andrew. You can see the campanile in the photo, although what's most noticeable are all the beach-goers and the cemetery monument on the hill at the right.

 This photo shows the other direction, where we came from, versus the previous photo. You can see the tour buses back there.

 This is Amalfi's main square, and in the background is St. Andrew's Cathedral. Notice the formal stairway to the front of the cathedral - 57 steps up. The bronze doors were made in Constantinople in 1060, and St. Andrew the Apostle's remains were transferred here from Constantinople in 1208. After we departed and I read about the cathedral, and saw its pictures and art pieces, I wished we had toured it. 

Given that St Andrew is the town's patron saint, they have traditional festivals in his honor. For example, a famous regatta that includes parades in full costume complete with a queen. 

The village has narrow walking streets, and I thought those archways over the street were cool. During our visit we shopped for two things -- the famous limoncello liqueur from this area of Italy (which we never did buy), and ceramic cups that we would use as cappuccino cups. Last year during our 10 minutes in Italy we bought our espresso cup set, and hoped to add a cappuccino cup set this year. Well, ceramics are a feature of this region and they had millions of beautiful pieces, but very few cups that were the right size for a cappuccino. We finally did find some that weren't TOO expensive, and bought two. Shopping DONE!

We eventually got back on the bus and continued our harrowing beautiful drive to Vietri sul Mere for lunch at a restaurant overlooking the ocean. It was a fabulous feast, we had to agree, complete with wine and dessert. The photo at the top of this day's posting is from the restaurant.

We ended the scenic drive in Salerno by getting onto the motorway and driving straight back to Pompeii, which is pretty close to Naples. Mt Vesuvius was shrouded in clouds when we passed it in the morning, but the volcano that ruined Pompeii in 79 AD was in its full glory when we returned.

Janet is on Via Stabiana in "downtown" Pompeii. As a brief primer about Pompeii, let me summarize what Manuela explained to us:

The town was founded in the 7th-century BC and was captured by the Romans in 80 BC. When it was destroyed 160 years later, its population was approximately 11,000. The eruption buried the entire city in 20 feet of ash and pumice. The site was lost for about 1,500 years until its initial rediscovery in 1599 and broader rediscovery 150 years later. The objects that lay beneath the city have been well preserved because of the lack of air and moisture. These artifacts provide a detailed insight into the life of a city during the height of the Roman Empire. During the excavation, plaster was used to fill in the voids between the ash layers that once held human bodies. This allowed one to see the exact position the person was in when he or she died.

Details of everyday life are preserved. The numerous graffiti carved on the walls and inside rooms provide a wealth of information regarding "vulgar Latin", the form of Latin spoken colloquially rather than the literary language of the classical writers. The amount of erotic art surprised many, which is now housed in the Naples Museum.

In her humorous way, Manuela kept hinting at something risque that she would be showing us in Pompeii, and finally she got to it...

...this phallus symbol on the wall to indicate the direction of the brothel. Later she showed us two more such instances, one being in the street.

Manuela showed us how to tell if a building had been a residence or a shop. You look just inside along the line of the street to see if a groove runs the length in the stone, which would have indicated where a shop's doors would fit when the shop was closed. When Janet took this picture, we did not know we would have an example of both in the background, assuming you can zoom in far enough. On the left, behind that man, you can see the groove, whereas for the residence on the right side of the photo by the woman, no groove.

 This street fountain was interesting because of the slick spots worn smooth on either side of it where Pompeian citizens for hundreds of years would have put their hands while bending over for a drink.

This is not a good photo, but it's my best of the Piccolo Theater, or Odeion. It's the smaller of two theaters next to each other. This one held 1500 and was more for meetings, whereas the Grand Theater, below, held 5000 and was for performances:

This is the Grand Theater, at the far south of the town. We walked into the center of Pompeii and finally reached the Forum. But first...

...here is Via Mercurio through the Arch of Caligula. The Via Forum running north becomes Via Mercurio. By the way, that's Vesuvius in the distance.

Here in the Forum you can see Manuela facing us explaining how the Forum was the center of activity, with a church, administration buildings, a marketplace, and various temples. Again, you can see the east side of Vesuvius in the distance (5 miles to the north).

After that we shopped a bit among all the vendors, and then bussed on back to the ship. That night Janet and I did not attend the stage show for the first time. It was a magic show, and based on the preview from them on the opening night, we decided we would probably not like it that much. Besides, we were pretty tired from three long days of excursions and walking. The next day would be At Sea, a day to rest and get rejuvenated.