10th August - Arezzo to Naples - Pompeii - Sorrento

Thursday 10^th August 2017

Sorrento, Italy

40 degrees 34.389N

14 degrees 25.722E

Yesterday we rushed around a bit.  And…it was very very hot.  At the end of the day we settlled in a lovely (not too expensive…) hotel with a beautiful swimming pool…and we were too knackered to do more than have a cold shower – swimming was a bridge too far!

We left Arezzo early in the morning and zoomed thorough the countryside in a very fast express train.  By nine am we were in Naples, a bit shocked at the speed of it all.  So we got onto an old rickety slow train, which chugged us to Pompeii.

Mt Vesuvius looms large

I will now reveal that I have some intimate knowledge of global warming over the past fifty years.  Because exactly fifty years ago, almost to the day, I was in Pompeii.  And I suddenly remembered, as we walked slowly through the 170 acres, that exactly fifty years ago it was just as hot.  Stinkingly hot!  Just like 9^th August 2017!!

We did a walking tour – I think everyone does this.  The ruins are one big maze, with no interpretive signs.  You would have to be very knowledgeable, and very impervious to heat, to be able to negotiate the maze all by yourself.  We were in a diverse group of 23 people and our guide was very competent, with a loud, ringing voice although she was very small and very young.  She shepherded us briskly from shade spot to shade spot and gave us lots of information.  We all trotted along behind her, following her orange umbrella as if our lives depended upon it, trying not to get siphoned off into another group.  Or groups!!

Mt Vesuvius is about eight kilometres away.  The inhabitants of Pompeii weren’t all that worried about being so close to a dormant volcano.  It had lain there benignly, not exuding even a puff of smoke, for 800 years.  And then in 67AD there was a relatively bad series of earthquakes, which shook everyone up. 

Intact ceiling

But not enough to realise that in 79AD the mountain would erupt.  Pompeii was too far to be engulfed in flames and lava, but it did get a heavy rain of ash, which crushed the life out of the once thriving little town.

The next devastation to hit Pompeii was during World War II, when it was bombed by American and British fighters…

There have always been dogs in Pompeii.  There is a sad contorted one, choked by lava, which I couldn’t bear to look at.  But there are still stray dogs living there, looking very healthy and happy.  Our guide said that they know everything, and basically, they run the show.  I watched one alert canine trotting about confidently, making use of tunnels through the ruins, looking very pleased with itself.  (Presumably somebody feeds and waters them…)

Everone perked up out of their heat-induced stupor when Maria took us to the Lupanar – the local brothel, home of the she-wolves.  They catered to visiting sailors, who couldn’t speak the local dialect.  So the she-wolves would howl in the evenings, to let them know which way to come through the maze of streets.

And in the lupanar they had helpful frescoes which were virtually a menu of the delights of the flesh to be selected.  This den of wolves was only for the working men.  The rich, said Maria, had their own private she-wolf.

By the time our tour was over all 23 of us were hollow-eyed ghouls, wrung out by the heat.

We abandoned Pompeii and got back on a rickety train, heading onwards to Sorrento.  This is a lovely town.  But maybe everyone thinks it is lovely – there really was very little room at any inn!

Sorrento

Pete left me guarding the luggage in the shade on some stone steps and trudged wearily around in the heat.  He struck gold – the Hotel Michelangelo, right in the middle of town.  It is very elegant and glamorous and we have stayed here two nights instead of one as originally planned.

Today we had a more leisurely day.  At midday we got on a hop on/hop off bus which took us around the Sorrento peninsula. 

All so beautiful and glorious.  The Isle of Capri, lemon orchards, olive groves, precipitous cliffs.

We only did one hop off, at Massa Lubrense, where we could walk down to a little fishing village, Marina Lobra.  It sounded all very easy…the bus would pick us up again on its second go around, a bit after two.  Plenty of time for a stroll, a beer, a snack.  It was actually a long hot walk, four kilometres in the midday sun (yes mad dogs and Englishmen were about and about again.)  We were quite happy walking down but dreaded the thought of going up again…it was all very steep, with not much shade…

But all was well.  We had a fabulous light lunch at a beautiful little restaurant, Funiculi Funicula – a big pot of mussels and a tomato/mozzarella salad – and discovered that there was a bus back up the hill at 1.40.  Thank the Lord!  (We will gloss over the fact that we stood at the bus stop and watched the bus arrive and then…off it went!!  Without us, although I had waved nicely, and I thought, affirmatively, at the driver!  Fortunately the whole village of oldcodgers shouted and waved until he stopped, about 100 metres going UP, and we were able to get up to the top of the hill without turning into Mr and Ms Tomatohead.)

The red double decker bus arrived in due course and we had more beauty to admire, and then…back to Michelangelo Hotel and its lovely swimming pool!

(A funny thing…We had an icecream at a café near the bus stop, so that we could sit and wait for the red bus to pick us up, and we saw a sign which said…Funiculi Funicula Pizzeria and bar, 500 metres….500 metres maybe if you dropped straight down the cliff and didn’t bother about any silly old road or path!!)

Sorrento!

Tomorrow we leave our cosy Sorrento nest and head off to Ravello – Roberto’s suggestion; the pick of the Amalfi Coast he says.

Much loved dog at the bus stop cafe