Day 14- Ciao Ercolano Ciao Caserta

In Italian, ciao means both hello and goodbye, and is normally used in multiples of 3, especially when saying bye bye. 

Spent my last morning in Ercolano (Herculaneum) by taking a walk to the university the two chemists had recommended I look at. I hadn't realized that it was in the former Palazzo Portici, which was the first stop for all the best bits of Pompeian and Herculanean treasures, before they were transferred to the  museum in Naples. I've read that it's in pretty miserable shape, and the exterior would attest to that, though it looks like they're doing something about it now. I would have loved to take a look at it, but it was all locked up, I guess because of the holiday. 

Portici Palace getting a needed facelift.

So I kept on walking down to the center of Portici, which is next to Ercolano, and made my way down to the seafront to see what I could see. Made my way past a little boat harbor to the public beach, which was very colorful and didn't look too awful, though who knows what is in the water this close to the port of Napoli. 

The public beach at Portici didn't look too bad, though you might glow in the dark afterwards

Decided I'd see if I could hike along the breakwater back to the hotel, and I hiked along the big boulders by the water, in front of a lot of dilapidated commercial buildings and a closed water park. Then I saw a Lido (a private beach club) up ahead and hoped I wouldn't have to hike back to the beach, since I'd already come a ways. A guy sunning himself on the rocks said I could go through on the rocks below, but when I got there, I saw I'd have to exit through the club or turn back. So I hopped a little fence and walked through the sea of orange umbrellas to the entrance, hoping nobody would ask me for my entry ticket. 

The snooty private beach didn't look much better, just more exclusive.

They didn't, and I exited the front, walked a bit more along the rocks, then turned and passed under the train tracks and up to a street I hoped would lead back to where I was staying. I paralleled the water for a bit then saw what I thought was the backside of the ruins park and turned up the hill. It was exactly that, and as a bonus I caught a glimpse of the excavated part of the Villa di Papiri, which really is directly below the place I've been staying. And I don't mean down the hill, I mean underneath it, as in, if you dug through the plumbing far enough you'd end up in the peristyle!

My one and only view of the Villa di Papiri, from a farm entry just outside it.

Anyways, got back to the place paid up and said "Ciao, Ciao Ciao!" to my hosts, and the British couple, who were heading up to see Vesuvius up close, and then hit the train(s) to Caserta, arriving in the heat of the afternoon. Found the place without too much difficulty, and got the keys from the cafe cashier, while one of the baristas showed me up to a new, clean, commuter style room (for 40 Euros!) with private bath and wi-fi. Cleaned up and then to a walk after the heat calmed down, over to see the entry to the Reggia, which is the largest palace ever constructed in Europe. Then back into town for the passagiata; did some window shopping, got a gelato, sat in the park, walked all over looking for an open grocery store, didn't find one, so I bought a couple of fried croquettes from a street vendor and called it a night.

Kids enjoying a bit of music making on the lawn in front of the Reggia Caserta.

Day 12- Herc, you Jerk!

All I need is a bed, somewhere to rest my head!

Well, you win some, and you lose some. After landing in this strange little place last night, I've gotten to kind of like my hosts. Neither one of them looks very Italian- more German or Austrian really, and they are not the loud brash types that seem to be the norm here. They have patience for my rudimentary Italian skills, and they didn't toss me out on the street when the reservation fell through, which would have been a real disaster. I'm also hoping they'll give me bit of a discount for not having wi-fi or a private bath in the flat across the street they gave me. I met one of my flat mates this morning, a nice Polish grad student working on a Phd in chemistry at the University here. She showed me how to work the washing machine, which is another distinct bonus of being over here, as I was just about out of clean socks and underwear. 

This leaves my laundry in the shade!

Went over to the hotel part to have breakfast on the terrace, which was lovely, then collected my things and went down to the Herculaneum Ruins. Several large tour groups had gotten there ahead of me, so I felt like a bit of a salmon as I tried to slip between them while avoiding the mostly overbearing and under-informed guides, who really grate on my nerves. At one point, in the Men's bathhouse, there were two of them going head to head over a very small opening between two of the rooms. Reminded me of the story by Dr. Seuss about the two Zax's, one who always went north and the other who always went south. "Get out of my way, now, and let me go forth!"

Spent some time in the College of the Augustales, a beautifully painted room that also has a lot of carbonized wood that has been preserved where it was found, under a roof that has been reconstructed from the remains. Herculaneum was encased in a pyroclastic flow of hot mud and gases, unlike Pompeii, which was hit with more ash, pumice and gases. The mud in Herculaneum is much harder to remove than the lightweight lapili found at Pompeii and Stabia, but it also preserved more of the organic materials, such as wooden beams, furniture, and even food. There are loaves of carbonized bread in the museum in Boscoreale that show exactly what it looked like, a round loaf with wagon-wheel indentations on top.

Not all of that wood is original, but there are large sections of it that are the real thing, carbonized, but still in place. In the College of the Augustales

This is where things started to go south. As I turned the corner of the top street, which was kind of a piazza like space, I started noticing barriers that had not been there before, and I got a bad feeling, like the previous visit to Pompeii in 2013. Sure enough, when I asked a guard if there was anything open now that hadn't been open two years ago, he sheepishly admitted that no, it was the opposite, that some things that had been open then were in fact closed now, including two that had been high on my list to revisit. The House of the Stags (Casa dei Cervi) was a very opulent house on the seafront (then) and it was also where my camera battery ran out last time. Very sad to hear that was now off limits. Also the Suburban Baths (see yesterday's post for explication of the name), which closed early last time we visited, was now completely out for repair work. The palaestra, where you can go inside some of the original tunnels that were how they explored

 Herculaneum to begin with, is now closed, and none of the ones they were working on last time had been opened since then. Bummer!

I hate this sign!

Nevertheless, there were some nice moments: the House of the Wooden Partition, which has a free standing wooden screen preserved in the atrium, The House of the Grand Portal, which has one of my favorite murals, with theatrical curtains painted over an all blue background, The House of the Beautiful Courtyard (need I say more?) and the House of the Black Salon all stand out. One thing that struck me again was the height of many of the rooms here. The rooms at Pompeii were just as high in many cases, but Pompeii lost more of its height due to the higher heat of the ash and gas mix that blasted down on them, so you're not as aware of that height in most of its sites. The house of the Samnites is another nice one that was still open, thank goodness, and it has a two story atrium that must have been stunning, with molded plaster columns surrounding the upper floor, and traces of what looks to have been a majestic mural all the way around. 

I never get tired of this theatrical frieze mural on the blue walls of the salon of the House of the Grand Portal. 

After finishing up there I found a lunch spot that looked promising but turned out to be rather average and pricey - should have gone further away from the park entrance- I returned to the hotel and found a spot on the terrace to sit and write. While I was sitting there, some kind of "discussion" began to erupt upstairs between about 6 or 7 people, all of whom were eventually shouting over each other at the top of their lungs, overlaid by the bambino, who was yelling "Mamma, Mamma, MAMMA!" the entire time, which must have been 15 minutes. You'd think Vesuvius was erupting and they were arguing about how many would fit in the boat, but it was likely nothing more than a political opinion, which are running high right now due to the elections that just happened. 

"Your Vote Counts!"

Day 11 - Pompeian Circumstance

A new record for me today, with over 835 photos taken at Pompeii and environs! Got out of my plain little room on the noisy boulevard around 8:30 am, stashed my bag at the train station, and went in to the Scavi (Ruins) of the town of Pompeii on a beautiful morning with clear skies and moderate temps, although I did shed my jacket before too long, unlike the day before at Stabia, where I kept it on all day. As I walked in I could hear the chants of the politically inclined out in the street, as they last minute campaigned for their champion down to the wire.

Juice stall with Sorrento lemons just outside the Pompeii gates

When I first came here with my family in 2007, there were very few things that were closed- essentially the Casa Vettii was the only one, and certainly no streets. The next time i was here was two years ago, and I felt extremely frustrated and hindered by the number of closures around town.  It was the same thing this time, with numerous streets and buildings inaccessible, but at least I knew what was coming. They have actually opened up a few more of them since the last time I was here, and everything looks like they're doing some good work. There's still a LOT of areas that are inaccessible, but at least they're doing something to preserve what's there. 

"Menu" of erotic options at the Suburban Baths. 

I decided to beeline for the Villa of the Mysteries before the big tour groups could get there, though I did stop off first at the Suburban Baths, which is right next to the entry ramp. They call them "suburban" because they were below the town walls, not out in the 'burbs. They feature some rather notorious sexual position murals that are thought to be a menu of possibilities for customers. "I'd like a number 7 please, with a little #4 for dessert." There's also a large cascading fountain and bath in the back that must have been quite something. After that I hiked over to the Villa, which is also outside the walls on the northwest side of town, and I was pleased to see that the crowd there was slim- just some French school kids in a bunch, and a few other people. I immediately went to the oecus- a big ocean-view social room- that has the famous mural of the mysterious rite for which the villa is named. I had plenty of time and space to attempt to get some good shots of it in the low light they keep it in for protection. Took twenty-five, only to then realize that my camera dial was set to "soft focus" accidentally! Urrrrghh! Why do they even include a setting like that? I was having a bit of camera envy for the big SLR rigs that some people had brought, since they let in so much more light than my pocket Nikon, but I love how portable mine is, and it actually takes pretty good photos and has a vey long zoom lens, so I'll stick with it.

Border detail from the Villa of the Mysteries. Precision work!

Slowly wandered through the rest of the house after that, marveling at the incredibly fine work in several of the rooms. Impossibly delicate decorations in so many different styles; the variety of pattern and structure has really struck me on this trip. Even simple patterns have variations in them that keep the eye coming back, and structural elements are subtly changed from one panel to another, so that what looks like a regular repeat is actually a whole compendium of forms placed in serial format, meaning that eye has more to see over time. The effect might sometimes look like stencil, but it is a very different feeling with much more satisfying visual pleasure. They must have had scores of painters for places like this, because no matter how good you are, and how long you've been doing it, work like that takes a lot of time! Some things about the painting are becoming apparent to me on this trip- technical details about fresco that I won't bore you with, though they're very interesting to me. After the house I became an informal tour guide to a couple of Americans I met there, guiding them to the Forum baths and a couple other painted spots with commentary. They both said I should hire out as a guide, which I've heard more than once here, but I need to save it for blogging. 

Picture of Narcissus from the House of the Ara Maxima, one of the ones that was closed last time. He is depicted in a pinake- an antique type of folding frame- sort of a picture in picture

Broke away from them by going at my usual snail-like photography pace and found a few of the spots that were closed last time I was here - that was fun - but I was pretty shocked at how many large chunks of the town are still totally inaccessible. Snacked on some peanuts ("arachidi" in Italian -we call them "arachnids") and the cherries I bought from the farm stand in Stabia, then made my way towards the exit, pausing to contemplate that I don't know when I'll be back, maybe not until I know they've reopened significant areas. 

The Stabian Baths are amazing. The tourists, not so much!

On my way to Herculaneum, my next stop, I was accompanied on the train by a boisterous bunch of high school age kids who yelling, slapping, grabbing, fighting, and generally creating mayhem in a way that only Italian kids can do, especially the ones from Naples area. Absolute chaos, but harmless. Got off in Herculaneum and casually strolled down the main drag towards the hotel, glad to have visited here once before to get the general layout. I made the one turn on the route, and noticed how much funkier the neighborhood gets as soon as you get away from the center. Not scary, but definitely rougher looking. Found the rather anonymous looking place, rang the bell, and waited several minutes before a woman answered and told me to come in and up to the first floor, which is what we call the second floor. She greeted me warmly and brought me in, but after a few minutes it appeared that they hadn't received any kind of notice from the online reservation company, Venere.com. She told me they were totally sold out, it being the big national holiday time, but her husband came down and said they had a rental apartment across the street that I could stay in. He walked me over and I looked at it, then we went back to the hotel part because there isn't any wi-fi at the apartment and I wanted to check emails and Facebook. They said I could hang out on the terrace there as long as I wanted, and it was very nice, with a great view of Capri and the Bay. I sat there quite a while, met an young English couple that had just arrived and were visiting the area for the first time, drank my soda water and watched the sun go down. I was going to go out and get something at a market, but it got late so I just skipped it. Maybe I'll lose a few pounds on the trip, which I could use.

View of the coast near Sorrento, from the terrace of the hotel I was supposed to have a room in.

Pic o' the day #1325- It's the little things that count

In some of the later wall paintings of Pompeii and Herculaneum you'll find a whole wall painted just one color, with some kind of small image in the center of it. Could be an Eros, or a dancer, or just some birds, eating fruit. From the House of the Grand Portal in Herculaneum.

Pic o' the Day #1324- What a Pain in the Neck!

One of the first things that started me down this rabbit hole of ornamental research was wanting to know about Pompeian style ceilings for a project I was working on. At first I had difficulty finding images of ceilings, but I now have about 350 of them, including these. I'm a little surprised at the energy that was often spent on ceiling decorations, which are very hard on the body, making it difficult and time consuming to do. For more photos of what I did at the house go to this earlier post.

This is a ceiling in the Casa del Salone Nero (Black Salon) in Herculaneum, with a ceiling that preserves both the painting and the vaulted form.

This is a reconstruction drawing of one of the ceilings in the Domus Aurea, Nero's palace in Rome.

Here's what I came up with for the ceiling at my project, with a bit of frieze inspired by the Villa della Farnesina in Rome. I'm still waiting for the go ahead to do the walls of the room!

By the way, Michelangelo never painted lying down; here's his little drawing of himself, in a letter where he is complaining about the pain in his neck!

pic o' the day #1323- Grand Illusions!

One of my very favorite wall paintings anywhere in the Bay of Naples is in the House of the Great Portal in Herculaneum. Not a very large or fancy house in general, but the quality of this work sets it apart. The restrained color is elegant yet dramatic; it's too bad the lower parts of the walls are all gone!

Only bummer about the room is how most of the lower walls are gone. I'd love to see what the pedestals looked like!

The upper area consists of a continuous frieze band and a background of blue architectural elements.

Frieze of curtains, masks, and trophies seems to refer to the theater.

Above the curtained frieze is this monochrome gray/blue architectural fantasy, typical of the mature 4th style (ca 60-70 AD)

Detail of the curtain and architectural elements. Awesome brevity and economy of color.

Pic o' the Day #1322- Monday Monday

As some of you may have noticed, my output since going over to posting on the blog page (then sharing on Facebook) has slowed down a bit, though the number of photos has actually gone up. This is because it's easier to post a few on the blog, but then I have to write more about them, which slows me down. Therefore, without further ado, and for your pleasure, I give you 5 photos with little commentary, all taken from the House of the Beautiful Courtyard (Bel Cortile), which certainly lives up to its name.

Pic o' the Day #1321- Sunday is Bath Day!

Just kidding! I don't even have a bathtub! Then again, neither did most Roman homes (except the really fancy ones.) Most of them relied on public baths, which were plentiful, cheap, and very well decorated. These shots are from the Women's Bath in Herculaneum, one of several large bathhouses that are preserved there. Unlike Hollywood's lurid depiction of loose morals and prolific sex, Romans were actually fairly modest, and most baths were segregated by sexes.

One feature I have noticed in several of the baths there are the ridged ceilings, which are not only attractive to the eye, but they also serve to keep water from dripping on one's head (by funneling it down to troughs on the wall.) Very nice when your in the caldarium (hot room) where the drips can sting quite a bit, especially on your head! 

Mosaic floor in the women's bath house at Herculaneum. 

Room with a large communal tub and a vaulted plaster ceiling.

The ridges serve to channel condensing water down to the moldings on the walls- away from your head!

Changing area had shelves for setting your things on and benches to change on.

Pic o' the Day #1320- Back on the Good Foot

A visit to Herculaneum seemed to confirm that all was not lost in the modern world. There has been a big effort at Herculaneum to preserve and conserve what is there, much of it done by the Getty Institute. Here are a few shots of the fabulous Sacellum Augustus, a shrine to Caesar Augustus that maintains not only these beautiful frescoes, but also the charred remnants of the wooden beams that once supported the upper floors.

The central image of this panel represents Hercules with Juno and Minerva surrounded by a stage-like architectural setting

Detail of a spiraling column with a Corinthian capital

Trompe l'oeil vista as seen through a break in the wall depicts a delicate architecture typical of the later styles (3rd and 4th) of wall painting.

Charred remains of the wooden structure that supported the upper floor. The volcanic debris at Herculaneum had more water in it than at Pompeii, thus some of the organic matter (wood, food, etc,) was better preserved.

Detail of a trompe l'oeil overhang with coffered underside

Day 31-Manly MAN.

(originally posted on facebook July 12, 2013)

Ok- this is it! We're only going to stay one more week. I promise. 

The MAN I'm referring to above is the Museo Archeologico di Napoli, where all the choicest bits of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabia, Boscoreale, Boscotrecase, and several other Roman era sites from the Bay of Naples ended up. Just like us. Seriously though, this is one major collection of antique art, including sculptures, mosaics, frescoes, and bits of architecture. I had to limit myself to the frescoes and mosaics or we would have been there a whole other day! As it was I took 600 photos, including a shot of every piece of fresco that was on display (a few weren't- just to make sure I come back next time. There's also a ton of architectural fragments I'd like to shoot some day.)

Entry to the MAN is in the traditional combination of red stucco and gray tufa stone ornament. You see this combo all over Napoli.

Our last minute train station hotel was actually rather nice (and cheap- 60 Euros- Thanks Rick Steves!) (I'm planning to do a wrap up report with all the travel details so I don't forget, and so others can use the info too.) Used the metro system to go up the hill and went up to the museum for the second time on this trip- the first time the fresco collection was closed and we left in a huff.

Don't know who he is, but I like his attitude!

We first went to the hall of mosaics, culled from many famous houses of the area- the House of the Faun in Pompeii has a whole room to itself. The fineness of these pieces is incredible! The Alexander the Great Battle scene, which was on the floor in the House of the Faun, is about 8 feet tall and maybe 16 feet across, and it's done with tiles that are no larger that 1/4 inch, if that! Some of the other large pieces verge on micro-mosaic technique. The coolest thing about mosaic is how the colors don't change over time, and they can be cleaned very well, so you get an "as new" impression except for where the tesserae are missing. It also informs ones view of how good the painting must have been then.

Mosaic from Pompeii

Tucked behind the mosaic collection is the infamous "Gabinetto Segreto" the (formerly) secret room full of erotic art that until the 1960s was only viewable by special appointment, and only to men- no women or children. The presence of phalli and other erotica is now open to all, and the meaning and mythology is pretty well explained by numerous placards in Italian and English. Good stuff!

"Is that really how you feel?"

Enough with the antipasti, it's time for the main course. Had a minor moment of panic when we went through the hall of objects to where I had gone in to the frescoes last time, only to find a barricade and people doing some kind of photo work behind it. Before I completely melted on the floor, a nice museum docent explained that the bulk of the frescos were open- just go in a different door! Whew!

Even the hallways in between the galleries are pretty spectacular!

I'm not sure whether it was better to have visited the sites first and finished up with dessert or to have had this in mind as we looked at all the more weathered bits; in any case it was a treat to see all these well preserved and well documented fragments in one place. Again the fineness of the work is astonishing- there are faces that look as if they were painted with a five-ought brush, and the range of treatments from highly ornamental to accomplished figurative and landscape painting, tragic to comic, shows a complete mastery of technique and rhetoric. 

Look at how finely painted this is- it only measures about 5 inches across!

I literally took at least one photo of every piece in the frescoes section- sometimes 5 or 6! Not only is it technically very interesting, it's also work that has been highly influential throughout the history of art until this century, when most artists seem to have deliberately forgotten it. You know what they say about forgetting history, don't you?

I love the frieze supported by figures motif. I hope to use it at the Villa Tramonto if it gets back on track.

After fine tooth combing that section we perused more leisurely through the hall with household objects. This is the other aspect of Pompeii and Vesuvius' other victims. There are so many pristine 2,000 year old objects here- it really shows the level of sophistication the Romans had gotten to. All kinds of kitchen utensils and tools, drawing instruments, ceramics and glassware of incredible variety, bathroom things, they even have a couple of specula for giving gynecological exams- they look remarkably like their modern counterparts. 

Bowls of powdered pigments found at Pompeii and Herculaneum, in some cases right next to the frescos that were being worked on.

Finished up there with a spin through the wing devoted to nothing but things gleaned from the Villa dei Papiri- the mansion on the edge of Herculaneum that was copied more or less for the Getty Villa in Los Angeles. Besides the trove of papyrus scrolls that it is named for (and which they think may soon be decipherable through modern technological means without unrolling) there is a huge assortment of sculptures both marble and bronze. 

There are several rooms that have nothing but items from the Villa di Papiri in Herculaneum. It must have been a veritable museum itself.

We've now made it back to Rome and have found a wonderful replacement for the Casa Stinky; a very nice apartment in Trastevere with a real kitchen, a washing machine, and a good internet connection. We're all set for one more week of adventures!