Today, we are in lovely sunny Napoli, the home of the pizza. We have booked a trip to Pompeii and a cameo factory.
Morning was the typical, fitness room, food and walking around the ship as our bus left at about 1:30. Pompeii is about 30 minutes from the harbour and the Sorrento Peninsula and the island of Capri were visible but too far for our short stay. Over the Appeninnes, the Amalfi Coast surrounds an even larger bay than the one at Naples.
John and I both agreed that the heat and crowds were worth the visit to Pompeii. Everyone knows the story of Mount Vesuvius erupting and covering the entire town with ash. All occupants (approx 20,000) were killed in two waves. The first flow covered the town and buried those at home with the second covering their rescuers so bodies were found at two different levels in the ash which covered to 20 to 30 metres in depth. Death was by suffocation so the bodies were not damaged. During excavation, where voids were found, a single hole was drilled and plaster flowed into the cavity until it was apparent that the space was filled. Then sufficient time was given for the plaster to harden and only then excavated. This process preserved the skeleton and in some cases showing features of the deceased including one woman who was pregnant, a man’s face and a complete dog. In our picture, you can see the toes of the skeleton where the plaster did not cover.
It was a very sophisticated town with plumbing, spas, brothels, and street lighting including the placement of shiny tiles called cat’s eyes in the walkways so the lamps and moonlight illuminated the path for night time walking. They had a process for storing snow from the mountains in terracotta jars under straw enabling the making of ice cream to combat the summer heat.
On a regular day over 10,000 visitors come to Pompeii and as the excavation has no trees it becomes incredibly hot. This makes some of the smaller spaces very claustrophobic with the heat and, frankly, pushy tourist; myself included.
The process for making cameos was used at Pompeii. They are made using conch shells (the thicker the better) which are cut into flat sections, sanded and then curved. This is very labour intensive and at Pompeii there is a very large, preserved door frame made using this process.
At dinner, we had a chance to talk with one of the cruise ship staff about her working on the Jade. She is from the Philippines (as are a very large number of the staff) and her term of contract is for 10 months of which she had completed 3. She works 12 hours per day, every day, for the entire contract time. She sends her money home to the family. I asked if she was homesick and she was pretty emphatic that she was not but that this is really hard work. She hopes her next contract will be in the Caribbean. Later John and I discussed this as it does feel bad that she has to work so hard but we concluded that it was likely better than her opportunities at home. Hopefully, she has community among the other ex pats and her working conditions are safe and reasonable.
Another person of note that we met today was Maria and she was our guide through Pompei. She is a really strong character. Her intelligence is apparent but her ability to manage crowds was more subtle but certainly no less fierce. What was of great interest to me is her philosophy as she lives on the volcano knowing that it is not dead as it erupted as recently as 1944 and the Bay of Naples is ringed by a further 12 to 15 volcanoes out about 100 miles which are much more likely to erupt which will cause a tsunami wiping out the city. She would live nowhere else in spite of having a wish to be in California and having lived in London which she still loves and visits at Christmas time. She is a strong and noteworthy woman and I wish her well.
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