Pompeii and Rome

Pompeii may be one of the most amazing places I have ever been, not for its beauty or magnificence but for preservation of a city wiped out by a volcanic eruption in the first century AD. The ruins of Pompeii are connected to the modern city of Naples and the whole region still lies under the threat of Mount Vesuvius, the volcano that erupted and buried Pompeii. The area has a great climate, is incredibly fertile and although the volcano is still considered active the people that live around the mountain consider the rewards far out weigh the risk.

Pompeii, a city of about 20,000 people was situated in an area where many wealthy Romans owned holiday villas and was known as a vacation city. Buried under up to 20 meters of volcanic ash, the entire city was lost for 1700 years. When discovered great sections of the city had been totally preserved in that ash. Store fronts on streets retained enough structure and design to allow academics to know what they were.

Street side eating place, with the cooking pots in place!
 

Some buildings when dug out of the ash still contained the products that were made there, such as loaves of bread with the bakers mark on the bottom.

Bake shop ovens


The Roman society was governed by laws that encompassed everything in everyday life. Streets had to be a certain width, wagons had to be a certain dimension. All was very set out. These cities with no underground sewer systems used the street to move sewer from the homes. As such there were stepping stones situated at strategic locations to allow citizens to cross streets without wading through the water in the street.

Stepping stones with groove worn by wagon wheels

Mosaics on the street and in front of stores advised people of the products that were offered there. Some of these street mosaics are still visible today. Different sections of the city were known for different services and symbols on walls and carved into the paving stones on the streets gave first time visitors to the city directions as to where certain services were found.

Phallic symbols were especially prominent giving direction to the red light district.

Bordello, turn left next street!

Outdoor theaters, gladiator rings (complete with small six by eight cells for living quarters), intact fountains, ceramics and much more was found as the place was dug out. Drilled holes through the Roman paving stones indicate that the area was settled long before this disaster and had been buried under ash at least twice before.

One of 27 street fountains of Pompeii

These fountains were all fed from an aqueduct and provided drinking water for the residents.

Citizens, once thought to have choked on ash, are now believed to have perished from extreme heat. Temperatures as high as 250 degrees Celsius spread for miles from the epicenter and people died as they were. As with the buildings, the vast layer of ash preserved some of the citizens of Pompeii.

Body found in the ash

After Pompeii a drive along the Amalfi coast, a popular tourist and vacation area of the Italian Mediterranean. Some 30 mile long, the road is hung and I mean hung on the side of the cliffs and contains around 1200 curves.

Amalfi coast road!

It is really exciting and scary when taking pictures and you look down out the bus window to four hundred feet of space to the rocks and no guard rail. The drivers are amazing, often having to stop and back up to allow oncoming traffic to get through the tight corners.

Now a UNESCO world heritage site the Amalfi Coast has thirteen towns or villages. These towns are, as the road, mostly hung on the cliffs and both homes and lemon farms are terraced on the steep slopes.

Town on the slopes

As with the Cinque Terre the villages along the Amalfi Coast are pretty and welcoming to all.

Christmas in Amalfi

Rome, what can I say about Rome, it has to one of the greatest cities of the world. Amazing history, great food and way too much to take in one day. But we tried, taking a hop on hop off bus around the city twice. We stopped at the Fountain of Trevi, of movie fame, built in the 1700's.



Trevi Fountain

Rome's history and artifacts spans the height of the Roman Empire as seen in the Coliseum, built between 72 and 80 AD, this four story free standing structure could seat 50,000 spectators.

The Coliseum

There are the many structures built by various Popes during the dominate periods of the Catholic religion and the renaissance years. Some such as St Peters Basilica are very representative of the design and art of this period.

Renaissance Sculpture

Then there are the more modern structures of administrative and municipal buildings built in the 1800's.

Victor Emmanuel Monument, started in 1885, completed in 1910

There is a lot to see in Rome and in Italy. Very few places that I have travelled have left me with the feeling that I would choose to go back there before some place I have not been. I will have to put Italy up in that category with New Zealand, the Cook Islands, and Japan.















The Acropolis and Sicily

Athens, while located in a beautiful climate was a bit of a mess when we were there. The municipal sanitary workers were on strike protesting austerity measures. Our lady tour guide was disgusted and had many insights into the monetary wreckage that Greece is facing, one that floored me was a law that did not allow the dismissal of government or municipal employees.

After a city tour past all the new stadiums and facilities that were constructed for the 2004 Olympics, our guides opinion was that the costs of these Olympics contributed largely to Greece's monetary issues.  The costs of these games was about 11 billion dollars, not including construction costs of new transit systems that were installed to accommodate the amount of people coming. Most of this cost, according to the guide, was paid for by borrowed money at high interest rates.

The Acropolis, situated on a high rocky hill, is one of the highlights of Athens. It consists of many buildings including the Parthenon. Now a European Cultural site the total area is one large heritage site.



One of the many temples at the Acropolis

Constructed in the 5th century BC the Acropolis was a palace and had several temples added to worship the various gods of the Ancient Greeks, the main one being Athena. As with other cities and other ancient structures the Acropolis has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. Mostly in wars between the Persians and Greece, the structures were repaired during the time of Alexander and during the Roman periods.

The Parthenon

The Parthenon, originally constructed as a temple to the goddess Athena through the years was used as a treasury, a church, a mosque and a munitions storage site. A explosion of munitions stored inside the Parthenon during the Ottoman rule did severe damage to the structure.

Base of a column

The stones used to construct the Parthenon, large enough for the columns, were transported about 10 miles from a quarry on an adjacent hill. The construction took 300 men 9 years and another 5 years to complete the artistic decorations. They have being working on restoration since 1937 and this work continues today.

Temple dedicated to the Greek hero Erichthonius

Built into the mountain side between the Acropolis and the flats were at least two out door theaters. These were used for plays and political gatherings.

Theater of the Acropolis
 

After the Acropolis we went back to the main city and stopped at the stadium built in Athens for the original Olympics. Seating around 50,000 people this stadium is now only used sporadically.

The first Olympic Stadium

Now over to Sicily, I was looking forward to see all those Mafioso type guys running around, but no such luck, every one was pretty much just like me! No guided tours here as we took a long walk to a bus station and took the public bus to the little town of Taormina.

Perched on high cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean, Taormina, although having a Greek and Roman past is more of a medieval atmosphere.

Taormina Beaches, accessible by tram.

The road to the town is as steep and curvy as anything in South America, difference is this one is paved. Most corners so sharp that oncoming vehicles had to stop and back up to let the bus around the corner. The town itself is surrounded by walls and entry is through rock gates.

Taormina Gate

Inside are many restaurants and unique little shops selling all sorts of olive oil, wine, ceramics and other Italian souvenirs.

Taormina Street!

Lunch in the rain, a nice glass of wine and just a relaxing day in a very pleasant little town. This is a place to revisit some day.

Taormina scenery

Next stop Napoli and Pompeii.










Mother Mary and Cleopatra

Turkish Culture

Kusadasi, Turkey was the only port where we where welcomed into the country by a group of cultural dancers. It was a nice moment. Kusadasi itself is a tourist town that will now basically shut down for the next five months. Full of carpet and jewellery shops, most will put their goods in storage and go on their own vacations. Business starts up again in April when the first cruise ship is back.

What a total surprise when I found out that after the Jews were excelled from Israel, John, who Jesus had asked to care for his mother, had brought Mary to the area of Ephesus. Ephesus is one of the best preserved classical cities in the Mediterranean and of the Roman Empire.

The house where Mary lived is just outside Ephesus, as well as the Shrine of Virgin Mary. 

Statue of Mary at the Shrine

The entrance to Mary's house

Thousands of people, both Christian and Muslim, make a pilgrimage here as Mary is holy in in both religions. As part of the shrine, is the well that provided water for Mary while she lived. Believed to be sacred many people go to the well to make wishes and take small containers of the water home.

 

Capturing some Sacred Water

Ephesus has been inhabited since 6000 BC, but came into it's glory under the Greek and Roman Empires. The site contains the largest collection of Roman ruins in the eastern Mediterranean with an estimated 15% excavated. It had the largest library, the Celsuis Library, in the Empire, built in the 2nd century AD, holding 12,000 scrolls and a large auditorium. A two story structure with four female statues at the front representing Wisdom, Virtue, Fate and Knowledge.

 

The Celsuis Library

There is too much at this site to put into a single blog so have shortened to my favorite sites. I found the public latrines of interest, especially as they were heated by slaves during the colder months, not sure how the heat system worked, maybe they sat on them prior to their masters!

 

Complete with underground drainage system

The Great Theater used for concerts, plays, political speeches and at one time by St Paul was also built in the second century AD. The theater held up to 25,000.

 

The Great Theater

The streets and avenues in Ephesus are much the same today as they were at its greatest time. Being a bit of a history buff, or at least liking to see these old cities, it was a thrill for me to walk these avenues where Alexander the Great, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra had once walked. At one point we were entertained by a group of actors portraying the Emperor watching a Gladiator  fight!

 

All Hail the Emperor!

But even these old cities must adapt to modern methods.

 

This old cobble road is smoother than the field!

Eventually destroyed by the Goths after the fall of the Roman Empire, to me Ephesus is one place in the world that portrays how these ancient conquerors lived at the height of their time.



Permanent Residents

We spent the last part of our day wandering around the shops in Kusadasi. Most of the shop keepers were offering "almost free" deals on their goods as the tourist season was drawing to an end. We spent time in jewellery shops (where we were also offered flats for rent), as well as watches, rings and bangles. The highlight though was going to a carpet shop, where the hand weaving of carpets was explained and demonstrated. The skill demonstrated by the lady was enormous.

Hand weaving a carpet.

During the demonstration the shop owner had his helpers flip carpets out on the floor, each with an explanation of the village it was made in, the quality of the fabric, (cotton, wool or silk) and the quality of the carpet itself, determined by the knots per square inch. More knots, higher price - cotton is the least costly while silk is the most expensive.  Once the show was over, Loreen the negotiator, decided she wanted a living room size wool carpet, high knot content, for the price of a living room size, cotton carpet, low knot content. Now this was entertainment! The poor guys probably laid down another twenty carpets during the negotiations. Loreen had to give a little bit, but she did get a carpet that satisfied her.

 

 

 

 

 

 



Nazareth and Galilee

A day trip from Haifa took us to the central mountains of Israel to Nazareth and then down into the valley of the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River.

We travelled through irrigated farm land outside of Haifa up into the foothills and passes of the mountains. Israel does not get much rain and with the start of the rainy season all Israeli's were happy, they need every drop they can get. Israel has massive water pipelines taking potable and irrigation water to places that just get no precipitation.

Not being able to import any oil from the oil rich nations bordering Israel they import from the US and as such have moved to alternate means of generating hydro, mostly through solar. Every building has solar panels on the roofs.

As the name suggests the tour was about visiting the areas where Christianity was born through Christ and his followers. I am not a religious person and was interested in the total history of the area, a Holy Land tour is a Holy Land tour, so I am putting down what we saw and where we went.

First stop the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, this is where the announcement from the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary of the coming birth took place.

Motif of the Angel and Mary, Church of the Annunciation



This is a very large beautiful church, as Catholic Church's can be, with grottos and Churches of other faiths near by.

Into the Grotto



Although Jesus grew up in Nazareth, most of his preaching was done around the Sea of Galilee and the Jordon River. He lived at Capernaum with Peter, and as his congregation and followers grew, they continued to build new walls around the original home. What started as a one room dwelling became much more.

The stone wall foundations of the home of Peter and Jesus



The Mount of Beatitudes, where Jesus delivered the sermon on the Mount is now home to a Catholic Church funded by the Italian government. Then we drove back into the valley for a stop on the Galilee where the miracle of the loaves and fishes was and to a kibbutz hotel for lunch.

The Sea of Galilee

 We drove down the east side of the Galilee, through a lush valley full of kibbutz's. These are communal style farms established on the edges of the Israel borders and some have become very wealthy, now owning factories, hotels and other businesses. The people that started these wanted to be at the edge of any intrusion into Israel and while I surmised they were ultra religious, was informed that while of Jewish descent, most were atheists.

Kibbutz farm homes

This drive followed the western base of the Golan Heights and I was able to get the guide to point out the escarpments the Israelis ascended at night under the guns of the Syrian army bombarding the Galilee during the Six Day War of 1967. While we were in Israel, Syrian forces came into the no go zone patrolled by the UN. This had Israel a bit excited. 

At the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, the River Jordon starts its journey south through Israel and Jordon. This is where John baptised Jesus and today it is a great tourist and pilgrimage stop while in Israel.

Modern day Baptism in the River Jordan

Over looking the River Jordan

The Holy Land

Wow, what an opportunity to see all the places were the beginning of Christianity came from. We ported in Ashdod, Israel, which is the transportation port of the country. Israel itself is a very small country, about 750kms from north to south and 150kms at its widest point east to west. It was bigger, but Israel gave the Siana, east of the Suez Canal, back to Egypt for a peace agreement and most of the West Bank of the Jordan River to Jordan for a peace treaty. 

A great portion of the land around Jerusalem was ruled by Jewish Kings until the Jews were conquered and then exiled from their home lands by the Roman legions. Now it is a country of about 8 million (20% Arab) that wakes up each morning wondering if they will be bombed by some neighboring company bent on eliminating the Jewish race.

We took a day trip to Tel Aviv, the commercial and financial center of the country. Tel Aviv is a big modern city with lots of new high rises and ongoing construction. Tel Aviv adjoins Jaffa, which may be the oldest port in the world.

Then to Jerusalem, the focal point of Christianity and Judaism and also considered a holy place by Islam. A city of old and new, contrasts and complexities, Jerusalem has something to offer every one. Originally named the capital of Israel in 996 BC by King David, Jerusalem has been conquered and partially destroyed by Romans, Muslims, Crusaders, The Ottoman Empire, Britain, Jordan and present day Israel.

At the Mount of Olives, place of the Ascension, we wandered through olive groves hundreds of years old and visited the Church of Ascension. From there we could also see the wall that separates Jerusalem from Bethlehem, which is located within The Palestinian Authority of the West Bank.

Olive Trees at the Church of Ascension, Mount of Olives

The old city of Jerusalem is totally surrounded by walls built and maintained by various conquerors over the years. The temple that Solomon built has been destroyed, rebuilt and destroyed throughout the the years. The Dome of the Rock Mosque was built over the original temple site by Muslim's in 632.

Dome of the Rock

Gate into the Old City

Only the Western Wall, called the "Wailing Wall" still exists. Within a few meters of the Wailing Wall there are at least three churches, two mosques and a synagogue. It seems that all religions come into this area to worship peacefully.

Loreen at the Western Wall




As men and women cannot pray in the same areas at the wall, I was off to the men's section.

Heading to pray!

There are several huge church buildings in Israel that have multiple Churches inside. Adjacent to the Western Wall is is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher which is shared by numerous Christian denominations. This large building and its multiple churches are built on the site where Jesus was crucified, entombed and resurrected.

Then we were off to walk the Via Dolorosa (Way of the Cross) the mile long route that Jesus walked with the cross from the point of condemnation to Crucifixion. At that time the route was through wide streets and open fields, today it a very narrow street with shops on both sides and full of people. We met about 5,000 Muslim's on their way to the Dome of the Rock for noon prayers, we tourists going the opposite way probably out numbered them, so it made for crowded streets.

First Place Jesus dropped the Cross

Bethlehem, best known for the birth place of Jesus, was also the birthplace of King David. Bethlehem is under the Palestinian Authority, so the procedure is drive to the security point with an Israeli guide and then walk through the gate and continue on with a Palestinian guide. We were lucky, our guide was also licensed in Bethlehem so we just went through. He did get a lot of guff from the Palestinians, though.
Bethlehem is mostly populated by Christian Arabs, and there are many Christian shops.

Loreen in the tunnel in the Church of Nativity

We went to the Church of the Nativity, built in 530, built over top of the stable area where Jesus was born. The Church of the Nativity houses three churches, Greek, Armenian and Roman.  The grotto of the birth place is under the church and is open, we did not go as it was too crowded and hundreds of people light candles in the grotto. Just a little too much for us.



Inside the Church of Nativity

Cruising to Egypt

We spent our last day in Italy in the Port of Civitavecchia, a gritty port city on the outskirts of Rome. Then onto the Celebrity Silhouette, our cruise ship for a tour of the Mediterranean, with stops in Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Greece, Sicily, Naples/Pompeii and then back to Rome.

Two days at sea, during which Loreen fed up with the lack of cleanliness in our room, asked guest services for cleaning products so she could clean it to other cruise line standards, resulted in an immediate upgrade to a new room with a balcony!  That's my girl, I would never of thought of that:)

We docked in Alexandria, Egypt (established by Alexander the Great in 332 BC) and spent a day visiting the pyramids, the sphinx, a lunch cruise on the River Nile in Cairo, and a large Muslim mosque. What an amazing day, although it was a little startling when the tour company informed us that every second or third bus would have a plain clothes, armed policeman on it. Not sure if it was to protect us or to protect the locals!

The Pyramids of Giza

Sphinx and his missing nose!

Standing at the front of the sphinx with the pyramids in the background and miles of desert was an experience I will never forget. Scattered around the area are small horse and camel caravans that wind through the desert and the pyramids.



Camel Caravan

Even though these caravans are mostly tourist scams, where they offer a ride for five dollars and then once you are on the camel they want fifty dollars to let you off, it is still a pretty spectacular sight to see.  (Our tour guide negotiated us a deal for $10 which I am sorry now I didn't take). 

Isn't she cute!

It boggles the mind to think of these huge structures being built centuries ago with no motors or hydraulics to get the huge stones up so high. The fitting of the stones together, where there are perfect ninety degree joints is also a mystery to me.

Jointed with a chisel!

Then onto an Egyptian river barge for a one and half hour cruise and buffet lunch on the Nile. The cruise boat was modelled after the ones that are depicted as the Royal Barge in Cleopatra movies.

The River Nile

The food was pretty western style and the big entertainment was the belly dancer from Argentina! Again, we were shadowed by a police boat with two armed policemen the total time we were on the river.

Then off to the Citadel of Salah-El-Din, built between 1176 and 1182, that includes the Alabaster Mosque of Mohamed Ali, not the boxer, a much older Mohamed! Again the place is huge, and built out of alabaster and marble.

The Alabaster Mosque

The excitement of the day took place when Loreen was stormed by a group of 12 to 14 year old school girls that all wanted to practice their English. She was thrilled, they were thrilled and their male teacher angry. Our well educated female guide explained to us the teacher was likely embarrassed that they could converse in English and alarmed that they would talk so freely with a westerner. They even came and asked me my name, which is against some cultural beliefs.

There is still a political gulf between the various groups of people in Egypt. Although most are of the Muslim faith, many are opposed to the present Islamic government, especially the mid twenty to forty year old educated. They are still protesting quietly against the election results.