Yesterday and today were Italian-school-children-field-trip days in both Naples museum and Pompeii. “Silencio, raggazi!” is not difficult to understand, even if you didn’t brush up on your Duolingo Italian before landing in this country.
This teacher was very animated in her explanation of Alexander the Great and his battle against Darius III, the King of Persia, in this famous mosaic. Made of one-and-one-half-million tiny tiles, it is impressive, and so was the teacher. (I hope her students learned something.)
Besides Alexander, we also saw intricate mosaics of fish —
and we all know who likes fish, don’t we?
Leaving Naples Archaeological Museum, we strolled around looking for a “shopping area” that Anna remembered, but it was deserted. So we wandered some more before telling the guys they should sit while we search for cannoli. Cannoli was very easy to find, and we ate some and also drank some coffee before setting out again for Napoli Centrale, the main train station.
Our next stop was Herculaneum, a village smaller than Pompeii which was also destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 AD.
Now today was a relaxing change of pace as we did NOT have to ride a train, we did NOT have to get up early (breakfast at 9 a.m.!) and we did NOT even have to walk far to our destination as the Pompeii Scavi entrance is just down the street from our hotel. Yay! (To recap — we have slept in the town of Pompei for the past two nights, but only today saw the ruins of ancient Pompeii. The town is spelled with one “I” and the ruins with two.)
Pompeii is expansive and only two-thirds of it is excavated. Our first glimpse of this city was the coliseum, which hosted gladiator games and the like. Here we are, against the wall of the arena.
Walking through people’s homes, seeing their gardens, admiring their artwork and their floor mosaics, seeing their “snack bars” and their cooking pots gave us a feeling of life before 79 AD. We also learned that Pompeii was a thriving city for six hundred years before the eruption. (Jamestown hasn’t even been around that long.)
‘Twas also another field trip day for schools. During a toilette stop, Anna was in her stall when a boy begin knocking and knocking on the door. (The toilettes were under repair and therefore “co-ed”.) “I’m not finished!” called Anna sweetly as the boy continued to knock. “I’ll be done in a minute!” He continued to knock repeatedly — maybe he was desperate — until Anna came out. Later as we were outside laughing about the incident, the young boy came up to Anna, got her attention, and said very contritely, “Um, scuzi. Scuzi.” She patted him on the shoulder and told him, “It’s okay!” We think his teacher saw what was going on and sent him back to apologize.
Vesuvius is in the background, above. If you think of Mt. St. Helens and draw an imaginary line to connect the left peak with the right peak, you can see how much of the mountain was blasted away during that famous eruption.
And, lastly, our feet on floor tiles that look like they’re right out of the 60’s…but actually quite a bit older.
Tomorrow is an early departure and four trains to Cinque Terra. The weather forecast doesn’t bode well for swimming…but we’re still excited to see the sea. Also, I have no idea what the wifi situation will be in Vernazza, so kids: don’t be worried if you don’t hear much from your parents for a couple of days.
This is me, signing off for the night!