Eve of Destruction (Sorrento, Herculaneum, Pompeii)

The weather proved as fickle as a FlixBus timetable. Overnight we had storms, old school style, with lightning and thunder and torrential downpours. Is there anything better than lying in bed and listening to the rain fall and the thunder rumble? Maybe it's just me and childhood memories, but I love it, dear reader. And so began the day.

We managed to get into the piazza and have breakfast without getting wet. The rain was now sporadic at best. The café chosen will probably not be a place to which we will return. The prices were double what we were paying in the south. I understand this is a coastal/tourist area and they need to make hay while the sunshines, but €6 for a doppio espresso, please.

At this point, I want to reflect on being a tourist. It is important to be a good tourist and an ambassador for your country. That means, among other things, embracing the local cuisine. We have attempted to eat every specialty dish of the regions we have visited and have gone close to sampling them all. Consequently it disturbs me to see the rise of thing like 'Americano coffee' on menus in Italy. (The fact that Starbucks exists is bad enough). I can't recall that being the case when we were last here. I understand that businesses have to cater for the tourist trade and give them what they want. But really? For starters, Italy is the birth place of coffee culture and no American knows how to make coffee. If you are visiting another country, embrace their culture. It doesn't hurt to learn a few local phrases either.

In our breakfast wanderings, we located our meeting point for our walking/food tour of Sorrento with Giovanni. The big decision for the day was regarding wet weather gear. The weather radar suggested the rain was gone, but could it be trusted? We ventured out without protection, so to speak.

Giovanni is a young local who has his own guiding business, specialising in Naples and Sorrento. You can find information here varrialeexperiences.com. It is also being a good tourist to support the local businesses and a tour such as this does that. Giovanni obviously had a good relationship with the owners of the businesses we visited and that was of benefit to us.

It looks like church but was a meeting place for the rich and famous back in the day.

Our tour was a taste of Sorrento with some local history and colour added. It was an excellent way to get to know a new place and also understand a little of their culture. There are not of lot of pictures for this part of our day because the weather defied the radar and the rain was intermittent and some places were crowded.

Here is snapshot of what we sampled:

1. At a gelateria/pasticceria we had sfogliatella. A custard and fruit pastry of 2 varieties - soft or crunchy (fried). We tried the soft as it is reliably good. Crunchy needs to be fresh out of the oven.

2. Next stop was a delicatessen, the likes of which were common in Australia before the duopoly of supermarkets destroyed neighbourhood stores. Here we had Provolone del Marco and Fior di latte (both DOC), tarallo, capocollo, Neapolitan salami, Sorrento tomatoes with olive oil and basil, and a glass of local Primitivo.

3. Fortunately we walked a little before our next stop. Gnocchi Sorrentina with a glass of Aglianico Beneventano. (I prefer the Primitvo). Jayne is not a gnocchi fan but she enjoyed this traditional local dish.

4. Now it was time for more alcohol. Limoncello of course, the great Italian digestive. We visited two different stores that made the Limoncello on site, but they were very different products. One was very balanced, light and fresh and the other was extremely alcoholic and spirity. We also sampled limoncello based cookies (their term) and a variety of sweets. Pistachios and chocolate featured heavily in the variants of the original.

5. Our final stop for the day was actually at the place we had breakfast. It was time for coffee and cake. A Neapolitan espresso and Lemon Delight which reminded me of the Nun's breasts of Bari. The dessert people, keep it clean.

The last Limoncello store.

An example of the exquisite inlay work.

On this food extravaganza we also stopped by the local Cathedral and a grand villa housing an exhibition of Sophia Loren photographs. Sophia is a big feature of Sorrento and her image pops up everywhere. We also visited an artisan whose craft is creating pieces of art made of wood inlays. His work is truly remarkable and incredibly time intensive and he is literally the last of his kind. Wood inlayers were once a stock-in-trade for Sorrento but the younger generations have not been willing to take it on.

The 'Sophia Loren' Villa.

Our walking tour lasted three hours and happily, we dodged the rain, which was quite heavy at times. Giovanni is worth contacting if you are down this way. It is not an easy way to make a living because it is season dependent. He told us that at the end of the month (October) most of the stores and restaurants will close because the tourists will be gone. In fact some things close at the beginning of October, like the Campania Express train between Sorrento and Naples.

The façade of the Cathedral.

Clearly, after the tour, we did not require dinner and returned to the apartment to enjoy the view from the balcony. And perhaps a little wine. It was time to rest because tomorrow would be a big day.

Night time from the baclony.

Looking to Naples.

Herculaneum

The next day the weather had improved a little. The rain looked like it had cleared, dear reader, although the wind had picked up slightly. It was still cloudy across the bay and Vesuvius had yet to fully reveal itself from behind its cloak of cloud.

As I have commented previously, the social unrest in Italy does not make the media in Australia, I assume because the pictures aren't as evocative as Paris burning. That's what the media thinks of the intelligence level of Australians, no picture, no story, - cheers Mr Murdoch. Anyway, the issues in the south are to do with blockades which are stopping grocery supplies from reaching the shops. The bigger impact though is on fuel. Most service stations on the Sorrento peninsula are without fuel. The blockades move position each day making it extremely difficult for local traffic - those fortunate enough to still have petrol.

As a result of this, the commencement time of our scheduled tour was moved from 10:30am to 8:00am. We were outside waiting at the appointed time when our driver, Alessandro, pulled up. We opted for a private transfer and tour with a qualified local guide/archaeologist because negotiating the train system and/or buses was difficult for a first timer. Also, we wanted a guide because Pompeii is so vast you could waste much time there and not see a lot. We used Goodheart Limos who pre-booked everything for us, they were recommended by a friend (cheers Santo) and were perfect (also less expensive than a lot of other operators).

The drive to Herculaneum was just over an hour and we had to negotiate the deadly section of road where the contra flow is in place. Our wait time was about 5 minutes, but it looked a lot worse heading back to Sorrento. We arrived at the car park to find it mostly unoccupied and there we met Andrew, our guide. He has dual degrees in Science and Archaeology. As a winemaker, he has spent time in Australia, Britain and France. A very knowledgable, interesting person.

A typical street.

A depth perspective. It was buried a long way down.

We knew Herculaneum was less of a drawcard than Pompeii, but we were surprised at how deserted the place was, although admittedly, we were there much earlier than originally planned. In any case, we walked straight through the turnstile into the park, and paused along the walkway above the precinct for a brief contextual introduction. Then we headed into the museum that, among other displays, houses a wooden boat, amphora, glassware, jewellery, furniture and coins excavated from the town.  The museum itself is small because much of what has been uncovered has been displayed in the museum in Napoli.

A carbonised fishing boat.

Gold bracelets.

Herculaneum is a much more compact site for 2 reasons; firstly, the town itself was a seaside resort for the very wealthy and only had about 5,000 residents. Secondly, only a proportion of it has been excavated as most of the ruins lie under the modern day town and will never be unearthed. 

A fresco.

A cupboard and contents.

Walking around the town, you see quite quickly a snapshot of life as it was, frozen in that moment of catastrophe, because the eruption of Vesuvius rained down molten lava that instantaneously burnt and buried all the people and their possessions, perfectly preserved from deterioration. Houses, restaurants, shops, bath houses, complete with signs, frescoes, floor mosaics, plumbing all document life for the very wealthy. Anything organic was carbonised and the artefacts that have been unearthed are in pristine condition.

Fresco as part of a shrine.

Hercules, Minerva and Juno

Mostly, it was easy to move around the park despite a few tour groups (we deliberately chose today for our tour because there were fewer cruise ships docked in Naples and Salerno). The guides all know each other and there seems to be an unwritten code among them as to how to navigate sites respectfully and efficiently. There was, however, one rogue operator who caused some angst. This guide had a substantial group which kept clogging up the focal points of the venues. Another guide approach our guide to discuss this interloper. As Andrew pointed out, the official tour operators all have to satisfy requirements/qualifications, annually update training to maintain currency and ensure quality of experience. Drop-ins from cruise ships are not welcome. (Cruise ships are never welcome in my world).

Wooden shutters similar to those used today.

Graffiti on a bedroom wall.

Anyway, once we had completed the tour of the site, Andrew and Alessandro conferred about our programme since it was only 11am. It was decided that it would be better if we continued straight on to Pompeii and the planned winery tour with a 'light lunch' would be enjoyed at our leisure, post archaeological experience. It was ok by us to keep going and so we jumped back in our car and were spirited away to Pompeii where we expected the crowds to be significantly worse.

Pompeii

Our guide Andrew, once again, met us at the entrance where indeed there were many more people milling around to enter. Oh the joys of a private tour ... we were instructed to accompany him past the entry queue and then to pause while he went to the ingresso, after which he returned with a map of the site. Then we magically bypassed the queue, suddenly finding ourselves walking up the entry ramp and into the city of Pompeii.

The monster in the background.

A Roman court.

This was a very different experience to Herculaneum, in scope and scale as well as impact from the eruption. Rather than an elite resort, Pompeii was a thriving, heaving cosmopolitan trade city and its demise was not instantaneous but rather a slower death under tonnes of volcanic ash, debris and toxic gases. 

A road with blocks to cross safely.

A bakery and mill.

Again, life in the first century C.E. has been captured and preserved with the forum, the temples, the markets as well as the wealthy, the middle class, the poor, the slaves and their respective abodes. This precinct, still only partially excavated, is much bigger and you could easily eat up a lot of time, trying to navigate your way around this ancient metropolis and still not see the places of significance.

A shrine within a house.

From a brothel wall.

Instead, Andrew deftly steered us through the main highlights and then away from the tour groups to vias less travelled but as revealing - markets, villas, houses of ill repute, sites currently under excavation to illustrate the painstaking process required to carefully bring the preserved history into the modern day. 

Fresco from a dining room.

Fingerprints in wet plaster from that fateful day.

We cannot stress how beneficial it was to have a (local) archaeologist unpack all the subtleties, the classic ancient historical and mythological contexts, the logistics of living life until it all changed at noon on a perfect day in  Pompeii. Clearly the segue to today's title, Eve of Destruction by Barry McGuire form 1965.

A recent excavation. Leda and the swan on the wall.

An atrium at the house of Nero's second wife.

We covered a lot in 2 hours and we watched people wrestle with their site maps, trying to locate particular places with not much idea of what they found there. In any case, our guide asked us at the end of the tour which was our preference, Herculaneum or Pompeii - neither, as both, while united in destruction under the shadow of Vesuvius, were totally different experiences.

Lunch at a winery

It was then time for, what I thought, was a wine tasting and a light lunch. You know, bar food and a couple of drinks. Yeah nah. We were welcomed in a whirlpool of buongiornos, handed a glass of sparkling rosé (I assume), names ticked off the list, and then it was time for an unexpected winery tour.

Vesuvius.

Yes, I realise, dear reader, that touring a winery is not my first rodeo and my disinterest may be measured against that, but, it was really a tick-a-box tourist 'thing' that I would have avoided, given the opportunity. We walked, glass in hand, familiar with that, into the vines. Brief stop to explain the place is organic and on volcanic soil so no irrigation required, then to gaze admiringly at some bottles they now store in an old 'cistern'. Next stop was in front of some vines. The explanation came so quickly I couldn't catch the varieties. They grow red and white. I hope I didn't spoil the surprise.

Iconic shot, grapes and an Italian pine tree.

Then down into the area where the grapes are processed. We looked at some stainless steel vats and then, be still my quaking heart, into the vat room. It was here it was revealed they use oak barrels from Croatia. WTF? Never have  heard that before.

Then it was time for our 'light lunch'.Seriously? This is Italy. At best 'light lunch' is tautology, or irony, or a unicorn because it doesn't exist. The very acceptable sparkling rosé was replaced by a very average bianco. The antipasto plate (to share?) arrived looking delicious until an identical plate arrived for Jayne. Too much.

Grapes. Are you surprised?

Next came a red wine. Whatever. Can we go now? No, there was more food. A bowl of spaghetti in tomato sauce (no, not like that) and some meatballs to share. The meatballs were cold and tasteless (mine are heaps better). The new red wine, their "best" according to the server also arrived. It was absolutely, definitely their best wine, but would I buy it? At €55, not a chance in the world.

Can we go now? No. There was dessert and this is a light lunch. With a dessert wine. A cheese cake thing appeared, covered in icing sugar, never a good look and a thin wine that was vaguely sweet with the word passito in its name.

Wines in the former cistern.

Can we go now? YES! In a booked tour, you don't always know what you are getting as was the case with this lunch. While the early part of the meal was appreciated, if we'd had the chance we would have altered the amount of food. Anyway, I sent Alessandro a message on WhatsApp to say we were done and soon enough we were being driven back to Sorrento and the safety and comfort of our balcony.

Once again there was no need for dinner.

Pompeii loves dick. They were everywhere.

I'm impressed.

PS

The FlixBus saga continues. I submitted a form to have our fare to Naples reimbursed because we missed our connection. My application was rejected because according to their (AI) data the bus arrived at 12:50pm. My response was terse and I requested my application be escalated if they were unable to access the data that showed my ticket boarding at Matera was stamped 12:47pm, making an arrival time at Bari of 12:50pm impossible. Without time travel. We shall see ...

Alla prossima.