Naples: Water for the Ancients

We made it back to Naples from our outing to Pompeii and Herculaneum with time to spare. This was where the tricky part in planning came in. Would we just wander away the day, or would we tick something else off the list to give us more room for our third day’s travel to the Almafi Coast? We decided on the latter and we headed to the underground.

Sotterranea Napoli

There are quite a few catacombs tours and entrances throughout the town of Naples. A few center around dead people—real, bonafide catacombs—and a few of the others center around the aqueduct system. To me, the civil engineering and city design history of the city is great interest to me, especially when it comes to how the ancients drank and pooped, so going for the latter-type sotterranea was an obvious choice.

above the entrance door

The Sotterranea Napoli is perhaps the most famous of the underground tours. There is no way to book ahead, and you have to go in with a tour guide. Which is good, because you can probably get lost and never found down there. The entrance is right in the middle of the old town, next to the Basilica of San Paolo Maggiore. When you’re there, you find the organizer and tell them you want an English tour (or Russian, Italian, Spanish, or whatever) and then they’ll call out your language after a bit. The Italian line is the longest, and the English line is quite a bit shorter, but I’m not sure if that holds true during the tourist season.

When we got there, we were lucky that there’s a free toilet for anyone waiting in line. We were glad to take advantage of that since we knew that there would be no toilet where we were going.

The tour starts off with a staircase leading down some 40 meters below the city, into the aqueduct system. The system was made by the first Greek settlers in 400 BC. They dug down into the tufa, a kind of soft volcanic rock, and mined the tufa to build the buildings up above. However, they mined it in a very specific way to match the plans of the city, and they created an intricate freshwater and sewage system to supply the town. Most houses above would have access to their own private aquifer, or water tank, that from within their house they could gather water.

slaves mining the tufa

If this sounds familiar from my Pompeii blog, it’s because it is. The same system that supplied water to Naples, also supplied water to Pompeii, Herculaneum, and many other towns throughout Campania, and went under an even more massive expansion and upkeep under the Emperor Augustus in 30 BC, making the system an insane 170 kilometers in length.

After they were done creating the system of tunnels, wells, and aquifers, they built an above and underground canal system from a nearby river, channeling it off to fill up the underground aqueduct system. The idea was that it would only fill up to a certain level, and the water would be continuously moving, so that there would be no still water. Still water is toxic water, after all. The wells were also designed in such a way that cleaners could be lowered down and be able to clean the water and the walls, making sure that gunk, rocks, or murdered bodies didn’t collect too much down there.

a Roman water bottle (amphora) being lowered down to get water

The aqueduct stopped being used in about the 19th century, when there was some sort of plague caused in part by the water supply. That caused the water supply to be upgraded to somewhat modern standards, and the water being drained out of the old aqueduct.

Bomb shelter

And it was a good thing the water was drained out. In the Second World War, Naples became the biggest Italian target of Allied bombing campaigns, receiving more than 200 carpet bombings in four years of the war, and 180 raids in 1943 alone. The aqueducts were the perfect places for people to hide away, often for three days to a week at a time. The tour takes you to this part of the history, where they’ve a couple of exhibits set up. One exhibit is of a large model tank, and another is of all sorts of random children’s toys they found down there. Also, part of the air raid tour, we got to see the public toilets, which didn’t really look so bad considering they were in tunnels 40 meters down. I can’t imagine the smell though.

children's toys found down below

they used to have doors

In Naples defense, it wasn’t really a center of festering Fascism. After the fall of Mussolini, the Germans invaded Italy and occupied it, partly as a preventative measure against the now disorganized Italian army, and partly because the Allies had landed on the boot and somebody had to fight them. There was a full rebellion going on, and the Nazis decided they couldn’t maintain the city between the rebellion and the advancing Allied army. So they did what they did best: they murdered hundreds of people somewhat pointlessly and ran away. The revolt though kept the city in tact, as Hitler’s plans were to completely obliterate the city after the German retreat.

More aqueduct action

After the bomb shelter tour, we were taken to an area where there were extremely tight water tunnels. They gave us little “candles”, the plastic kind you light up on the bottom found commonly in Catholic tourist trap churches, and we walked through them. They were a super tight fit, and occasionally opened up into huge man-made caverns that still stored water. All of the water there was pumped in just for the tour, but it gave a nice imagery of what it was like. This was probably the neatest part of the tour.

my wife lighting the way

one of the many water channels

Theatre

After the underground tour, they brought us out of the aqueduct and walked down a long street. There was a bit of confusion at what the point of this was, but it was an interesting conclusion to the tour. First they brought us to a small room that looked like an apartment. The occupants were doing an expansion in their cellar when they stumbled into some old walls of very interesting design. Archaeologists came down and discovered this too was part of an ancient Greek theater, and a historical preservation society has since tried to buy the various apartments that were built in the theater so that they could deconstruct the apartments and reveal the original structure. The results have been hodge podge, with bits of theater revealed, cut across at random by huge blocks of apartment. Actually, a pretty interesting part of the tour.

inside part of the theater, outside someone's apartment

Finally, they brought us around to a woodworking shop that was actually also in a part of the ancient Greek theater. The woodwork shop now hosts an exhibition of some fifty or so various nativity scenes. Neapolitans love nativity scenes. This is because Jesus comes from Naples. True story.

a couple of nativity scenes

Final thoughts

If I were to choose again which tour without having gone, I’d still pick this tour. It’s great for everyone who wants to learn some history of Naples, and who’s interested at the amazing engineering that went on to build the aqueduct system. I imagine the catacombs tours are also great, and if I’m back in Naples I’ll do one gladly, but at this point, I had had enough of dead people stuff over at Pompei. Which I know, is hard to imagine, but still. Stay tuned next week for our trip to the incredible Almafi Coast.

#history #touristicsites #Rome #theatre #museums

Pompeii and Herculaneum: The Cities of the Dead

It was finally time to see what we had come to Naples for. Or what I had come to Naples for. We were there to see dead Romans. I’m not so sure my wife was as interested in dead Romans as I was, but after that day, she was.

Pompeii wasn’t the only city buried by the exploding debris and ash that flooded out of the crater of Mount Vesuvius. There were dozens of villages, though only a few have been excavated and are able to be visited. The crown jewel is of course Pompeii, but the real diamond in the tufa is Herculaneum.

The other major ruin which shouldn’t be missed by history buffs is Cuma, where the Roman Sibyl lived, but this history buff missed it due to not having enough time, Cuma being on the other side of Naples, and my just having a massive brain fart and not realizing Cuma was in effing Naples. I am clearly no oracle.

somebody to watch over me

How to get there

There are two ways to these sites. You can take the L2 metro (metro map here) in the direction of Salerno, which is faster and far more comfortable, but drops you off a little further away both places. Or you can take the Circumvesuviana from the main station in the direction of Sorrento, which is slower, much more rickety, but takes you right practically to the doorstep of both.

seeing my dreams at Pompei

And Circumvesuviana, man, that train is like the New York metro. All the signs are busted, there’s graffiti everywhere, the doors may or may not work, and the announcement voice seemed to have been one or two stops off, when it was working. It’s safe though, so have fun.

Ruins in Italian is “scavi”, and Herculaneum is “Ercolano”, so when you’re looking for the two sites, search for Scavi di Pompei and Scavi di Ercolano.

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Herculaneum

We took the Circumvesuviana and did the 5 minute walk downhill to get to the park. No stress there. At the gates were dudes trying to sell tours. No grazie, I’ve got my own little tour in my cell phone. And was I right! There’s quite a number of app based tours, complete with maps and GPS, that are available for both sites. Download those and save yourself some time and pain. You can skim through what interests you and find the really cool stuff.

view of Vesuvius and Herculaneum

Herculaneum was a small port village for rich people, way back in the day. So there’s huge villa after huge villa, all squeezed together, in what I imagine was a bit of a tourist destination even back then. The walls are all well preserved as are the frescoes on the walls and the mosaics on the floors. There was even preserved furniture, statues, weapons, kitchen supplies, and in several instances, loaves of bread. If you want to get the feeling of how Romans were living in the ancient times, this is the village to visit, as you can walk around inside the houses at your own leisure, take a deep breath of air, and really see yourself there.

taking in the air

preserved statue outside the suburban baths

public water well on the street

The common house had an entrance relaxation room, which was usually with a fountain in the middle and an open space in the roof to let the light in. The bedrooms and the kitchen would have doors from there, unless there was another indoor room for gathering. Even bigger houses would have open gardens lined with covered walks and statues, and the really wealthy would have their own bath (which I think was only the case in Pompeii). The rooms all had mosaic-tile covered floors and brightly painted walls illuminated with mythological scenes.

the middle fountain with an opening above

floor tiles

wall mosaic and frescoes

frescoes

interior fountain/pool

Some houses had their own access to an underground aquifer system, while others people had to send their slaves to fetch water from the public fountains, which were at every corner. There were also a few cafes. A cafe would usually have a small bar area, where there would be jars inset to the surface to store hot foods. In Pompeii, the cafe culture was nearly ridiculous, as just about every other building housed a public cafe.

the holes in the counter would be covered to store hot food

Herculaneum is a small site, so it’s hard to miss stuff, and everywhere you go is something amazing. So just take your time, but just make sure you end up at the boat houses.

Romans were classy people with classy art

The boat houses were once at the beach, but are now some 20 meters from the sea. The villagers had all rushed down there, taking cover from the falling ash and pumice and waves of heat, bringing with them their valuables, hoping that the sea and the subterranean shelter would protect them from the wrath of the gods.

the boathouses, were below that plaza in the back left, then there was the sea

It didn’t.

Now what’s left are skeletons reaching to the back of the boathouses, clearly crying out in terror as the probably the vapors and smoke suffocated many them before the heat shock gave them a quick and final resting place. As this was a late find, they left the skeletons as it were, no longer doing the archeological tradition of plaster casting the bones, as they did in Pompeii.

Pompeii

After a quick lunch in the modern town of Ercolano, we hopped back on the train and went to Pompeii.

Pompeii was a town of 11,000 at the time of eruption, strategically placed underneath an active volcano. To be sure, Vesuvius is still an active volcano, so all those towns around it continue to have amazing strategic placement, and are probably either cash crops or nightmares for insurance companies. It strikes me as exceedingly weird that Naples continues sprawling around the mountain, but then again, on the other side of Naples is another active volcano, so…

the main gates and the suburban baths

The town was first settled in the 7th century BC, and was taken by Rome in the 4th century BC. It’s got well-preserved roads, walls, and statues, a bathhouse, an amphitheater, a coliseum, and dozens of other things you’d see in a major Roman town. To put it short in the words of the esteemed Macklemore, this is freaking awesome.

the volcano Vesuvius looming in the background

While I was getting my groove on to Thrift Shop after entering the ruin complex, my wife was already getting tired of the Roman fun. She did get a short thrill from the skeletons, but all the walking was already starting to wear on her. “It’s all the same.”

“No, that’s the Temple of Apollo! And that’s the Temple of Jupiter! And over there is where they celebrated the cult of the Caesar,” I said as I jumped from one ruin with big columns to another ruin with big columns, like a cricket high on crack.

view in the forum

“And here, in the forum, here’s where a guy would stand and read off the daily news, keeping everyone up to date on what was happening in the Empire. There would also be outdoor markets here, and over in the Temple, you’d have to purchase animals, perhaps right here, to pass over to the priests to slaughter for sacrifice. Actually, did you know, the Ancient Jews really kind of had the same system as the Roman pagans and the Egyptian pagans, and, and, and—” I rattled off like a five year old in a toy store.

looking the other way in the forum

This was directly after leaving the entry hut, which is a must visit. They’ve got a huge map frieze, that lights up as a video shows you what it used to look like and tells you about the location. Even though I had a tour map app on my phone, just watching the video and getting the feel where everything was almost made it unnecessary. Except that the site was freaking huge, so a map really is a must, or you’ll get pretty lost pretty easily.

the big light up map of Pompeii

What were my favorite sites?

First, a map:

As we took the Circumvesuviana, we entered at the stop right next to the site, Pompei Scavi – Villa Dei Misteri. During peak season, I’d suggest buying your tickets in advance with GetYourGuide, and you’d pick up those tickets right at the upstairs of the train station. If you’re not in peak season, it won’t be a big wait, you can go up to the gate and buy your entry there. Again, with the Arte Card, you’ll get the tickets for either free or for half-price. A lot of websites I see claim they only take cash, but that’s an utter load. They gladly take your plastic there too these days. Anyhow, there’s also an ATM there, so if by chance they’re not taking your card, then you can get to the ATM. But I paid by card myself.

the basilica, which was used as a court

After entering the forum, you can continue past it toward the amphitheater, or go down the long way to the houses. You must see the houses. And see them first, because by the time you’ll get to the other side of the town, you’ll be too tired to see anything and want to head back, and of course you won’t want to miss the major sites. Where if you did it with the major sites first, you might be tempted to miss the houses, which you shouldn’t. If that makes any sense.

a random street

The neighborhood is easy to get lost in. It’s well-cobbled street after well-cobbled street, with massive walls and doors all up and down. It was really interesting to see the Roman setup, they had streets for horse carts, which had clearly dug into the stones over the centuries centuries ago, and raised pavements for people to walk, along with huge blocks spaced for the horse carts, but high enough to easily step across from the pavements.

a narrow street , the blocks in the middle were cross walks

inside a house

a shrine to the household gods

The Forum Baths

In the neighborhood, head to the Forum Baths. That’s the first amazing thing to see. The city of Pompeii had at least four public baths, and the Forum Baths, though they weren’t the biggest, are the most well-preserved. After an earthquake a few years before the eruption, they were also the last to be used. The baths served as places to talk business, meet up with friends, and to get clean, obviously.

the locker room

You’d first work up a little sweat in the hot room, and then alternate between the hot pools and the cold pools. The hot pools were kept hot by a system of tiles and fires underneath, which would be stoked by slaves. Not your African American variety here, but often a Gaul, German, or Greek would find their fates down below the pools of Roman men (and women). The bathhouses were separated, women got their own and men got their own, though that wasn’t always the case in all villages everywhere.

a wash basin

the warming room

Many of the larger villas had their own bathhouses, and the water was pumped in by an aqueduct and a clever system of canals and aquifers. Which also meant, most houses often had their own indoor water supply, but where they didn’t, there were public fountains on nearly every corner.

The Hood

It’s hard to say which house was the best in this part. We just kind of aimlessly walked around. I’d read the descriptions on my phone of whichever interested me, and though the houses were interesting, indeed none of them were as well preserved as Herculaneum. I got the most thrill in this area just walking around, imagining myself in ancient days, people dressed in white or red sheets running around about their daily business.

another street and crosswalk

Lupanare

Speaking of their daily business, the Lupanare was the town brothel. It had really tiny rooms with small beds, each room right next to each other, and above the rooms porno murals. Really cool building. It’s kind of weird going into this site, as they’ve tried to design it that you have to enter from a certain direction, that is, from the Forum. This traffic control is because it’s a small building, and I’m guessing the most popular. Because of that, we visited this last.

two stories of love

an item on the brothel menu

Villas

After the hood, we went down a really long street with villas. Most of the villas were pretty largely intact and you could walk through, and many had their own vineyards. It wasn’t bad to be rich back then. Like now, I guess.

a winery (recreation) in the back of a villa

The Amphitheater

This was the biggest attraction. All the really big events would happen here, from major gladiatorial games to Pink Floyd concerts. Yes, Pink Floyd concerts. They played a “show without an audience” there once and filmed the whole thing. Now there’s a kind of Floyd exhibition going on in the halls.

approaching the amphitheater

This arena is also where they’d bring in wild animals and the always crowd-pleasing Christians.

someone would prefer lions to more walking!

The Grand Theater

On the way back, it’s easy to hit the Grand Theater, which also hosted gladiatorial combat, but was mostly used for acting and music concerts. It’s actually still used for that as well, with occasional operas or plays being held there. It’s a pretty massive space, easily holding a couple of thousand of people, and steeply shaped like an IMAX.

gladiators, poets, and thespians all in one show

Just imagine, what took us some 70 years of theater technology to finally innovate, they were doing 2000 years ago.

Temple of Isis

This could be a really cool spot, but it was closed with ongoing excavations, so I guess a reason to go back.

Fun fact

Pompeiians loved dicks. During the various digs, they found little (and big) dick statues everywhere. Neapolitans also like dicks and started a collection of found Pompeiian dicks at the University of Naples. They were apparently a little embarrassed by this dick fetish, so they kept the collection a secret until recently.

what to draw on an ancient wall?

Also what amazed me at Herculaneum was the sheer amount of modern dick graffiti, which just goes to show that it wasn't just the ancient Romans who've got the fetish. From what I could tell by the languages on the walls, it's mostly Russians who love penises.

Plaster casts

At first when they found skeletons in the tufa, they’d carefully try to chip away only a little bit of tufa and then extract the skeletons. After which they’d fill it up with plaster, remove the tufa and voila, you’ve the shape of a person. This is still sometimes practiced, and sometimes it’s just left as a skeleton now—as in Herculaneum. The original skeletons have been carried off to a museum near you.

I see no skeletons!

Stay tuned next week when we head off to the dark underground city far beneath Naples! If you liked this blog, share it with a friend.

#history #ruins #touristicsites #Rome #traveltips

Ischia: An island, a castle, and vampires

We simply walked up and bought a ticket.

Our timing with the mainland castles wasn’t that great, so hopefully it would be better with the off-land castles. We were headed to Ischia.

“I thought you said this would be cheaper,” my wife asked me when we finally settled on the back of the boat.

“I thought it was, at least, the website said it was cheaper,” I replied, staring at my ticket quizzically, trying to take in with my best gander the 18-euro price tag that was on the ticket. That was theoretically almost the there and back price.

Ferries

After a more rigid search on ye ole Google, I found that there are actually two boats that go to Ischia. One was a super-fast hydrofoil, and the other a slow boat. The hydrofoil was set to take 1 hour, while the regular ferry typically took 1.5 hours. Not a big difference, and to be honest, 7 euros wasn’t a big difference in cost either. But it is when you are two people and really trying to stretch your eurocents.

view of Naples from the ferry

There are two main ferry lines (and a bunch of others), and all have an updated schedule here. And though you can buy it online, we had no problem in the off-season buying it when we wanted to go, but the ferries were nearly full even then, so if you’re going on-season, I would highly suggest buying online. The Caremar and Medinar lines are the slow ferries that cost 11 euro 30, and the Alilaura line is high speed and costs 17 euro 60. The slow ferries also take cars for quite a bit more.

It’s important to note that even though we had an Arte Card, which covers all the public mass transit options in Campania, it doesn’t cover any of the ferries, as they’re all private. It weirdly does cover the public buses on Ischia though.

a little further from Naples

The hydrofoil, which we had accidentally gotten on, was something else to ride. I just thought, a fast boat, can’t be that different of a ride. But this thing, though almost as large as the regular ferries, took off at a race car speed and was literally flying over the waves, coming down in great splashes, so that anyone outside could, if the winds were right, get quite wet from the ride. Luckily we had moved inside, as the roaring wind caused by such a speed made it a bit too cold to hang around deck.

Mount Vesuvius looming about in beautiful smog

Ischia

Like the rest of Campania, Ischia exists because of volcanoes. It’s almost 20 square miles of pure mountain madness, centering around Mount Epomeo, which is a giant volcanic horst—in other words, it’s a block pushed up by volcanic activity underneath.

approaching Ischia

Ischia is no stranger to eruptions and earthquakes, and the first Greek settlers there had to abandon it for the mainland and settle Cuma, which was where the main Roman oracle lived. Fun fact—the oracle would get high on volcanic gases in order to mutter things that would be "interpreted" by priests as prophecy. For T.S. Eliot fans, she appears in my favorite poem, “The Waste Land” which opens with a line from the Satyricon (I've translated it from the Latin for you):

I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl of Cumae hanging in a jar, and when the boys asked: What do you want? She responded, I want to die.

What a beautiful island! When we got off, it was already evident that the docks, as most docks are of tiny islands across the globe, was an incredibly lovely place. The gently lapping waves, the salty breeze, and at night it was even more charming. But perhaps it was charming because of the lack of tourists, which was not a bad thing at all. I couldn’t imagine the summer though, it must be a mad house.

a street in Ischia

We started walking towards the castle we had seen, Castle Aragonese, which was the goal of the trip. We passed it on the way, the thing was enormous and perched on a gigantic rock in the sea—not on our island but on its own island!

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We walked through the old town of Ischia—if you’ve more time, check out Sant’Angelo, an old style village wondrously free of cars—but Ischia was not wondrously free of cars. Some areas, the only way to go was a street without pavement, with cars and scooters zipping by.

It was a weird thought to wrap around my head. Such a small island with so many cars!

Ischia did not lack cars

Even weirder was that though we had arrived at a bit after 3:00, the island was, besides all the cars, a ghost town. Nothing was open. None of the shops or cafes. No people about. I get that it wasn’t tourist season, but it was still the weekend. Did people here just not work?

another empty Ischia street

Castello Aragonese

The true highlight of the island. There are several overlooks in Ischia lined with (closed) bars and beaches, looking out to the castle. It must be quite a hopping place in the summer. Quite expensive too, from the looks of it of the (closed) boutique shops.

Castle Aragonese from a nearby beach

The origins of the castle date back to 474 BC, if you can imagine seeing something around from that long ago. As a major strategic site throughout history, it was duly maintained, and in the 15th century, the then ruler connected it to the mainland via the currently standing bridge. At the islands peak, 2000 families were living in the castle, including a Catholic convent, a Greek Orthodox abbey, a bishop and a seminary, 13 churches, a prince and a military garrison. It was quite an active castle, in perhaps the most religious way possible.

The bridge and the castle

When we finally arrived, it was already closed. That castle was my whole purpose of going there! I would have never thought that it would have closed so early, so I was a bit crushed. The official time of closing was “sunset”, which apparently meant different things to different people. Here it meant 4:00 pm in winter.

looking back at the village from the castle

After dark

We sat there in my unhappy gloom, on the bridge, for some time, listening to all birds and the children playing. The bridge seemed to be the favorite hangout for the locals too, where young couples would come out, drink wine, and listen to bad music played off their iPhones. Older men tended to pass their time fishing.

some folk hanging out

We finally decided to get moving and head back to the ferry. As we wandered through the village, we noticed that things were beginning to stir. As the sun went down and the streetlamps came on, shops started turning on their own lights and opening their doors. People started appearing on the streets. Old men appeared at tables, playing chess and smoking, kids playing football, mothers pushing baby strollers. It was a city of veritable vampires!

view of the bridge from the castle

The harbor was now a perfectly romantic place, and we finished the evening with a meal at a restaurant on the second floor of one of the buildings on the boardwalk. I thought it would be super expensive, but a liter of wine and a shrimp spaghetti with homemade noodles for the each of us was only 20 euro. It’s possible it’s only that affordable in the off-season, as I imagine during tourist season they switch menus and make it double. That's just a thought though.

the harbor at night

If we had had some more time, we would have hopped on the bus and seen more of the island, but alas, it wasn't ours to have. We also would have gone to the Castiglione Theme Park, but also couldn't make it for that.

Come back next week as we head out to see the ancient Roman ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Subscribe and don't miss it!

#ischia #islands #castles #churches #touristicsites #history #traveltips