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.