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This post will be a bit of a summary/overview of our holiday in Campania, with a Several of photos and will be followed by more detailed posts with even more photos for them as are interested in Ancient Romans. If this is not you, fair enough :) I'm also planning a post containing dogs, birds and a lizard, which may appeal :)
This post contains pictures of persons without their vests on, and a stylised penis, but it's Culture, so not really rude. Honest :)
We arrived in Naples on Friday 9th March and got our Artecards at the Garibaldi rail station in the centre of town - these are invaluable things which cost 27 Euro for a 3-day pass and cover all the public transport run by Unico Campania (including, crucially the Circumvesuviana railway, which runs all along the coast from Naples to Sorrento) entry into the first two participating sites and half=price entry into the rest. Even better, you can buy more than one at a time and use them consecutively. Not only does it save money, but it also means you only need one ticket for everything - except the bus from the airport into town because you can't buy them at the airport, unfortunately, but otherwise they're brilliant.
We then took the Circumvesuviana out to Pompeii and our hotel, which is the same one we stayed at last time the Hotel Villa Dei Misteri, which is just a short walk from Pompeii. Then, having got up at 3.30am to get to the airport, we crashed out for the day, ready to go exploring in the morning.
Saturday was a Pompeii day. We trundled down the hill to the Porta Marina gate and into the ruins, and were pleased to find that several bits which had been closed last year were now open, including the Stabian Baths and the front part of the House of the Faun. It was colder and more overcast than on our previous visit, but still not as cold as at home.
Corinthian capital :-
Statues lurking in the back of the macellum (meat and fish market)
Stucco decoration on the Stabian Baths:-
The replica statue of the faun at the house named for it :-
Sunday was a trundle out on the Curcumvesuviana for a return visit to Herculaneum, a much smaller place than Pompeii, but still well worth a look and with its own charm and treasures. Here too, some areas were open that had been closed when we last visited and others were closed.
Fresco depicting Hercules in the Hall of the Augustales :-
Mosaic in the men's baths at Herculaneum
Wall painting, Herculaneum.
Bronze hydra. This was tucked away in a sort of cellar/cave, with no indication that it was there - we only spotted it because we saw some other visitors coming out. There was no indication as to whether it's the original or not.
It was only mid-afternoon when we finished our tour of Herculaneum, so on the way back to the hotel we stopped off at the station one stop down the line at Torre Annunziata, to visit the villa purportedly belonging to Nero's wife Poppaea at Oplontis. Good decision.
It was ginormous and had some gorgeous artwork. Not to mention a swimming pool bigger than our house.
Wall painting of Vesuvius, Oplontis
Wall painting, Oplontis. I think this is what they call the "third style". It's brilliant, anyway.
Poppaea's Lido. Shame I forgot my cozzie :)
Monday was the day between Artecards, and thus another trundle around Pompeii. The weather had got brighter, but very windy and grit was blowing everywhere, as this picture of the forum shows :-
Who knew? Among all their other innovations, the Romans apparently invented Lego too ;) I suspect the reason it didn't catch on back then was that you needed a rugby team to move the pieces about :)
Since we had the time this trip, we walked out to the VIlla dei Misteri and then followed the footpath around the outside of the city walls down to the amphitheatre and got some unusual views of the site.
Fresco at the Villa die Misteri for which our hotel was named :-
Amphitheatre
Fresco from the House of Venus on a Shell
House door
Good luck symbol. Allegedly.
We also went noodling into some of the more obscure bits and found some nice bits and pieces like this mosaic of a hippocampus :-
The view from the cheap seats - looking down on the bigger of the two Pompeiian theatres
On Tuesday it was back on to the Circumvesuviana to hunt out the two villas open to the public at Stabiae. These are not as well signed and publicised as the other places we visited, but they're also well worth a visit. we seemed to be the only visitors when we were there (although someone else was just leaving the Villa Arianna when we arrived), but then it was pretty early in the season.
Vesuvius from the Villa Arianna, Stabiae
Wall painting, Villa Arianna
The painting for which Villa Arianna is named - Dionysus admires Ariadne at Naxos.
Wall painting, Villa Arianna
Perseus with the head of Medusa, Villa San Marco
Original bronze statuette of a crow, Villa San Marco
Wednesday was again spent in Pompeii. More pictures from all the places we went to follow for those who aren't bored yet :)
This post contains pictures of persons without their vests on, and a stylised penis, but it's Culture, so not really rude. Honest :)
We arrived in Naples on Friday 9th March and got our Artecards at the Garibaldi rail station in the centre of town - these are invaluable things which cost 27 Euro for a 3-day pass and cover all the public transport run by Unico Campania (including, crucially the Circumvesuviana railway, which runs all along the coast from Naples to Sorrento) entry into the first two participating sites and half=price entry into the rest. Even better, you can buy more than one at a time and use them consecutively. Not only does it save money, but it also means you only need one ticket for everything - except the bus from the airport into town because you can't buy them at the airport, unfortunately, but otherwise they're brilliant.
We then took the Circumvesuviana out to Pompeii and our hotel, which is the same one we stayed at last time the Hotel Villa Dei Misteri, which is just a short walk from Pompeii. Then, having got up at 3.30am to get to the airport, we crashed out for the day, ready to go exploring in the morning.
Saturday was a Pompeii day. We trundled down the hill to the Porta Marina gate and into the ruins, and were pleased to find that several bits which had been closed last year were now open, including the Stabian Baths and the front part of the House of the Faun. It was colder and more overcast than on our previous visit, but still not as cold as at home.
Corinthian capital :-
Statues lurking in the back of the macellum (meat and fish market)
Stucco decoration on the Stabian Baths:-
The replica statue of the faun at the house named for it :-
Sunday was a trundle out on the Curcumvesuviana for a return visit to Herculaneum, a much smaller place than Pompeii, but still well worth a look and with its own charm and treasures. Here too, some areas were open that had been closed when we last visited and others were closed.
Fresco depicting Hercules in the Hall of the Augustales :-
Mosaic in the men's baths at Herculaneum
Wall painting, Herculaneum.
Bronze hydra. This was tucked away in a sort of cellar/cave, with no indication that it was there - we only spotted it because we saw some other visitors coming out. There was no indication as to whether it's the original or not.
It was only mid-afternoon when we finished our tour of Herculaneum, so on the way back to the hotel we stopped off at the station one stop down the line at Torre Annunziata, to visit the villa purportedly belonging to Nero's wife Poppaea at Oplontis. Good decision.
It was ginormous and had some gorgeous artwork. Not to mention a swimming pool bigger than our house.
Wall painting of Vesuvius, Oplontis
Wall painting, Oplontis. I think this is what they call the "third style". It's brilliant, anyway.
Poppaea's Lido. Shame I forgot my cozzie :)
Monday was the day between Artecards, and thus another trundle around Pompeii. The weather had got brighter, but very windy and grit was blowing everywhere, as this picture of the forum shows :-
Who knew? Among all their other innovations, the Romans apparently invented Lego too ;) I suspect the reason it didn't catch on back then was that you needed a rugby team to move the pieces about :)
Since we had the time this trip, we walked out to the VIlla dei Misteri and then followed the footpath around the outside of the city walls down to the amphitheatre and got some unusual views of the site.
Fresco at the Villa die Misteri for which our hotel was named :-
Amphitheatre
Fresco from the House of Venus on a Shell
House door
Good luck symbol. Allegedly.
We also went noodling into some of the more obscure bits and found some nice bits and pieces like this mosaic of a hippocampus :-
The view from the cheap seats - looking down on the bigger of the two Pompeiian theatres
On Tuesday it was back on to the Circumvesuviana to hunt out the two villas open to the public at Stabiae. These are not as well signed and publicised as the other places we visited, but they're also well worth a visit. we seemed to be the only visitors when we were there (although someone else was just leaving the Villa Arianna when we arrived), but then it was pretty early in the season.
Vesuvius from the Villa Arianna, Stabiae
Wall painting, Villa Arianna
The painting for which Villa Arianna is named - Dionysus admires Ariadne at Naxos.
Wall painting, Villa Arianna
Perseus with the head of Medusa, Villa San Marco
Original bronze statuette of a crow, Villa San Marco
Wednesday was again spent in Pompeii. More pictures from all the places we went to follow for those who aren't bored yet :)
tired
The woman on the left of the fresco at the Villa die Misteri looks like she's trying to flog second-hand phalli from under her robe, à la Del Boy.
Hee! Given how many of the things there are carved on the walls there, you may well be quite right :)
Was that door made partly of some early form of wall plaster or cement, I wonder? The curious horizontal 'toadstools' on it look as if they were coat hooks.
The doors are apparently casts - like the ones of the people elsewhere, done by pouring plaster into cavities in the volcanic rock. which probably explains the oddness of their form.
I thought they were, from the texture of them. Presumably the moulds were first roughly hacked out of the rock (hard work, I'd bet) to form the correct shape; most ingenious.
The view of the vesuvius is thrilling. After all the beauty and carefully designed walls and statues it's a almost hurting to see the rundown houses in the foreground...
The lego stones do seem a bit big for kids. I laughed when I saw the game boards scratched into the stairs of the temples in forum romanum. Probably people parked their children there when they went shopping. I like the concept.
Yes - if we hadn't seen someone else coming out of there, it probably wouldn't have occurred to us to try to go in - it didn't have any sort of sign or indication that there was anything inside. I'll put some more pictures of the hydra in my next post - sadly it was very dusty, so the details aren't as clear as they could be.
Yes, the modern town isn't quite as pretty, alas :( Apparently that part of the coast was very popular for holiday villas for the top bods - we got a book in Pompeii called "In Stabiano" which seems to be a collection of articles about it and we're finding it very interesting.
I love that hydra statue, and the faun, and the photo of the capital at the very top. It gives such a great perspective on how tall it is.
The views into the mountains are lovely - I had no idea that this part of Italy was so hilly.
It was quite hilly up to the Stabiae villas as well! They were on top of a cliff before Vesuvius threw its grumpy fit :)
Sometimes my absolute lack of brain amazes me.
There was a cute T-shirt in the shop at Herculaneum with a cartoon Vesuvius saying "Pompeii? I'm sorry!" :)
Vesuvius is mindbogglingly ginormous. The plane home had permission to fly over the crater - I was too chicken to look but Rob said it was amazing. the lady behind us asked why it had a cloud attached :)