Amalfi
Oy. So, obviously I have been remiss about updating lately. And by lately, I mean the last 6 months. But, that changes now!
So, without further ado,
We were actually docked in Naples, Italy, but I've heard that it's not such a great place, aside from Neapolitan pizza. So we opted to do an excursion to Amalfi and Pompeii. The Amalfi region is famously beautiful. If you've seen Under the Tuscan Sun, there's a part where she goes off with some Italian man to drink Limoncello on the beach, then she adopts a kitten..Anyway, that was in the Amalfi region, which is all along the coast of the Mediterranean.
So, pictures:
As you can see, it was a sort of blech, cloudy, rainy day. But still gorgeous. We took this narrow, high, windy road right next to the ocean, essentially up a cliff. People build their little houses on the edges of the cliffs and have to, for reasons I can't remember, put their garages/car ports on TOP of their house, not next to it. So they sleep with their car over their roofs.
Most of them seem to be lemon farmers--from which they make the limoncello, the tastiest drink in the history of alcohol--and they create these little plots by shaping the ground into flat ridge things. I'm sure there's some sort of farming term for this, but I dont know what it is. Anyway, it creates flat ground for them to plant their lemon trees, and then they use these lattices to direct the trees growth I guess.
According to our tour guide, the people that live in these little villages are quite peculiar; it's a hard, dangerously-high-up-on-a-cliff sort of life. They tend to be sort of surly, but also very artistic. There were murals on almost all the houses, and it was really fascinating. Sadly, I don't think we got any pictures of said murals.
One of my favorite pictures ever. This is a view looking down at the side of the road, from our bus. Straight down. To the ocean. Did I mention I'm afraid of heights?
Church near Amalfi
More scenery.
Then we had a few hours in the city of Amalfi, which was built right on the water in a small bay. There were all sorts of shops, I ended up buying an HP book in Italian, and a new dress. They sold lemon soap, lemon perfume, lemon everything. We had pastries for lunch and I tried to remember some of my Italian.
This is the city, from the end of the dock. Those trucks in the front belonged to fishermen. They were selling freshly caught fish out of the backs.
Past those front buildings, through a little passageway, there was the town square. Shops surrounded it, but there were also little stairways leading up to people's homes. How much do I want to move here?!
The square also held a few fountains:
But the center of the square was the fairly large church:
w/ amazing mosaics
From the edge of the dock, you could see the entire bay:
After Amalfi, we went to Pompeii. Richard was v. excited about this in particular. I found it a little grim, to be honest. I'm sure you all know the story, but just in case: Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD and rained down ash on the area for two entire days. From what I could tell, most people that died there died because they were buried in ash, not because of some fiery lava explosion. The entire town was buried, and not discovered again until the 18th century. A lot of what we know about Roman life comes from this preserved look at a Roman town.
The entrance was near an area which I guess would have sort of been the suburbs of Pompeii. We had to trudge up a giant hill on a wet stone path, I remember it was quite tiring. You can see in some of these pictures the individual walls that would have made up separate rooms of houses, or separate houses.
The city was much much bigger than I imagined it would be. It also surprised me that they are still working on digging things up/restoring things, as this photo sort of illustrates.
This is what remains of the temple of Jupiter--Jupiter was the Roman Zeus, God of the Gods, philanderer, lightning bolt thrower, etc. They would have made sacrifices on this altar--i.e. killed cows and other animals, burned the innards, and prayed for good fortune or success in battle or something.
The steps to the temple. Roman temples are different from Greek in that they only have steps on one side; the Greeks had steps on all sides.
This is a colonnade (line of columns) and one of the few remaining statues.
This is the forum of Pompeii. It served as a political and social hub of each Roman city. The one in Rome is obviously the most famous, were all the crazy shit went down during the Roman Empire. The temples of Jupiter and Apollo were on opposite ends of the forum.
The remains of the temple of Apollo.
some very well preserved walls and stairs
All of the buildings and structures were open to the elements and to visitors, but all of the artifacts and preserved items were stored in a ...well a shed, really, so they were safe from rain and the elements. But we could still see them. And they were creepy.
Pottery, and more pottery. Notice the bins above that contain more, small artifacts.
There were also statues and preserved columns:
Not that creepy. No. But these were:
Yup, real people. They were buried in the volcanic ash, literally dead in the streets, discovered nearly 1800 years later. Now they're on display in the exact poses that they died in. This one bothered me most:
But nothing, nothing compared to how much this bothered me:
Poor little puppy!
Okay, on to cheerier things.
The inside of a Roman column. I can't say that I ever wondered how they were made, but i find it fascinating to know that they made a brick column and then just sort of plastered over it.
Next we went to the Bath area. If people don't know about Roman baths, here goes: It was like a spa today, but much more intimate. Rich people would go and spend the entire day. There were different stages you had to go through. You would start out at the 'gymnasium' area, where they would do some exercise to try to get up a good sweat. Then they would go to different rooms, with cold water, then lukewarm, then v. hot. Then back to cold. The idea was that the water would help to open the pores and get out the caked in dirt, then going back into the cold would seal the pores again, keeping the skin clean. Anyway, pictures:
Courtyard of the baths.
One of the bathing rooms
Statue inside the baths
A steam vent. It's amazing how much they were able to do to manipulate nature with so little technical development. I mean they had hot, cold, and lukewarm water in 79 AD.
Plaster work inside the baths
A fountain inside the baths.
From there, we went around the rest of the city of Pompeii, the actual houses and businesses where people lived and worked.
The ruts and stones in the road served a specific purpose. The large stepping stones where so people didn't have to walk in all the excrement and whatnot that would have been in the streets. The ruts are exactly the width of cart wheels, so that people could transport their wares in and out of the city. We went to a very well preserved, very large home with some of the best preserved mosaics in the whole city. It was called the House of the Ancient Hunt.
A cupboard under the stairs at #4 Pompeii drive! hmm. There were also preserved businesses, like this bakery:
Complete with large bread oven, and mill for making flour. I think donkeys were involved in the process. We also went to an ancient brothel! There were crazy frescoes on the wall. The way it was explained to us: Ancient visitors to Pompeii were often tradesmen who spoke very diverse languages. This brothel painted the er...menu on the wall so that customers would simply have to point, rather than explain.
And lastly, on the way back to our boat there was the massive Mt. Vesuvius.
So, without further ado,
We were actually docked in Naples, Italy, but I've heard that it's not such a great place, aside from Neapolitan pizza. So we opted to do an excursion to Amalfi and Pompeii. The Amalfi region is famously beautiful. If you've seen Under the Tuscan Sun, there's a part where she goes off with some Italian man to drink Limoncello on the beach, then she adopts a kitten..Anyway, that was in the Amalfi region, which is all along the coast of the Mediterranean.
So, pictures:
As you can see, it was a sort of blech, cloudy, rainy day. But still gorgeous. We took this narrow, high, windy road right next to the ocean, essentially up a cliff. People build their little houses on the edges of the cliffs and have to, for reasons I can't remember, put their garages/car ports on TOP of their house, not next to it. So they sleep with their car over their roofs.
Most of them seem to be lemon farmers--from which they make the limoncello, the tastiest drink in the history of alcohol--and they create these little plots by shaping the ground into flat ridge things. I'm sure there's some sort of farming term for this, but I dont know what it is. Anyway, it creates flat ground for them to plant their lemon trees, and then they use these lattices to direct the trees growth I guess.
According to our tour guide, the people that live in these little villages are quite peculiar; it's a hard, dangerously-high-up-on-a-cliff sort of life. They tend to be sort of surly, but also very artistic. There were murals on almost all the houses, and it was really fascinating. Sadly, I don't think we got any pictures of said murals.
One of my favorite pictures ever. This is a view looking down at the side of the road, from our bus. Straight down. To the ocean. Did I mention I'm afraid of heights?
Church near Amalfi
More scenery.
Then we had a few hours in the city of Amalfi, which was built right on the water in a small bay. There were all sorts of shops, I ended up buying an HP book in Italian, and a new dress. They sold lemon soap, lemon perfume, lemon everything. We had pastries for lunch and I tried to remember some of my Italian.
This is the city, from the end of the dock. Those trucks in the front belonged to fishermen. They were selling freshly caught fish out of the backs.
Past those front buildings, through a little passageway, there was the town square. Shops surrounded it, but there were also little stairways leading up to people's homes. How much do I want to move here?!
The square also held a few fountains:
But the center of the square was the fairly large church:
w/ amazing mosaics
From the edge of the dock, you could see the entire bay:
After Amalfi, we went to Pompeii. Richard was v. excited about this in particular. I found it a little grim, to be honest. I'm sure you all know the story, but just in case: Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD and rained down ash on the area for two entire days. From what I could tell, most people that died there died because they were buried in ash, not because of some fiery lava explosion. The entire town was buried, and not discovered again until the 18th century. A lot of what we know about Roman life comes from this preserved look at a Roman town.
The entrance was near an area which I guess would have sort of been the suburbs of Pompeii. We had to trudge up a giant hill on a wet stone path, I remember it was quite tiring. You can see in some of these pictures the individual walls that would have made up separate rooms of houses, or separate houses.
The city was much much bigger than I imagined it would be. It also surprised me that they are still working on digging things up/restoring things, as this photo sort of illustrates.
This is what remains of the temple of Jupiter--Jupiter was the Roman Zeus, God of the Gods, philanderer, lightning bolt thrower, etc. They would have made sacrifices on this altar--i.e. killed cows and other animals, burned the innards, and prayed for good fortune or success in battle or something.
The steps to the temple. Roman temples are different from Greek in that they only have steps on one side; the Greeks had steps on all sides.
This is a colonnade (line of columns) and one of the few remaining statues.
This is the forum of Pompeii. It served as a political and social hub of each Roman city. The one in Rome is obviously the most famous, were all the crazy shit went down during the Roman Empire. The temples of Jupiter and Apollo were on opposite ends of the forum.
The remains of the temple of Apollo.
some very well preserved walls and stairs
All of the buildings and structures were open to the elements and to visitors, but all of the artifacts and preserved items were stored in a ...well a shed, really, so they were safe from rain and the elements. But we could still see them. And they were creepy.
Pottery, and more pottery. Notice the bins above that contain more, small artifacts.
There were also statues and preserved columns:
Not that creepy. No. But these were:
Yup, real people. They were buried in the volcanic ash, literally dead in the streets, discovered nearly 1800 years later. Now they're on display in the exact poses that they died in. This one bothered me most:
But nothing, nothing compared to how much this bothered me:
Poor little puppy!
Okay, on to cheerier things.
The inside of a Roman column. I can't say that I ever wondered how they were made, but i find it fascinating to know that they made a brick column and then just sort of plastered over it.
Next we went to the Bath area. If people don't know about Roman baths, here goes: It was like a spa today, but much more intimate. Rich people would go and spend the entire day. There were different stages you had to go through. You would start out at the 'gymnasium' area, where they would do some exercise to try to get up a good sweat. Then they would go to different rooms, with cold water, then lukewarm, then v. hot. Then back to cold. The idea was that the water would help to open the pores and get out the caked in dirt, then going back into the cold would seal the pores again, keeping the skin clean. Anyway, pictures:
Courtyard of the baths.
One of the bathing rooms
Statue inside the baths
A steam vent. It's amazing how much they were able to do to manipulate nature with so little technical development. I mean they had hot, cold, and lukewarm water in 79 AD.
Plaster work inside the baths
A fountain inside the baths.
From there, we went around the rest of the city of Pompeii, the actual houses and businesses where people lived and worked.
The ruts and stones in the road served a specific purpose. The large stepping stones where so people didn't have to walk in all the excrement and whatnot that would have been in the streets. The ruts are exactly the width of cart wheels, so that people could transport their wares in and out of the city. We went to a very well preserved, very large home with some of the best preserved mosaics in the whole city. It was called the House of the Ancient Hunt.
A cupboard under the stairs at #4 Pompeii drive! hmm. There were also preserved businesses, like this bakery:
Complete with large bread oven, and mill for making flour. I think donkeys were involved in the process. We also went to an ancient brothel! There were crazy frescoes on the wall. The way it was explained to us: Ancient visitors to Pompeii were often tradesmen who spoke very diverse languages. This brothel painted the er...menu on the wall so that customers would simply have to point, rather than explain.
And lastly, on the way back to our boat there was the massive Mt. Vesuvius.