Herculanium

We were up bright and early again today and decided to skip the bus in favour of a quick taxi ride up the cliff. Our plan was to visit the other famous archaeological site in the area, Herculaneum (or Ercolano). Again I had visited this site before, so I knew the others were in for a real treat. Pompeii may be the more famous of the two, but Herculaneum is far more spectacular.

We caught the train again, without any difficulty and enjoyed the same views as yesterday. However this time we travel past Pompeii, until we reach the outskirts of Naples. Again the walk from the station to the site is really straightforward. You simply walk down the hill until you reach a great big hole in the ground.

Herculaneum is very different to Pompeii ...The former sits directly below the modern city (of Ercolano).

Herculaneum is very different to Pompeii. The latter was discovered beneath open fields and could easily be excavated. The former sits directly below the modern city. This has obviously limited the size of the excavations and you tend to find yourself staring into rooms that are now caverns, carved out from the surrounding rock.

When you arrive on site you slowly follow a sloping path around two sides of the excavation. It gives you a superb view of the town. Eventually we were ready to cross from modern Ercolano to the Roman city of Herculaneum. In the distance we could again see the dark ominous shape of Vesuvius. The volcano treated Herculaneum very differently to Pompeii. The latter was destroyed by a Pyroclastic flow (a tidal wave of superheated gas) and buried by ash, the former was buried under a boiling mud flow that raised the ground level by 10 metres and pushed back the sea by at least 200 metres.

To access the site we crossed over a modern bridge that brought us down onto the upper levels of Herculaneum’s harbour. One of the first things we saw was a rather beautiful orchard in the gardens of the Shelter or Hotel House. Actually it was neither; it was simply a large private home

We visited the central baths and soon found ourselves admiring the wonderful mosaic. I watched Tina try to take a good photo of it with her camera held high about her head. She looked like a ballet dancer mid pirouette. I rather enjoyed visiting the baths as you can easily visualise them in use. In fact you can even sit on the benches in the changing room, underneath the shelf where Roman visitors would have stowed their belongings, rather like the changing rooms I remember at school!

Further down the road we came across the first really impressive building, the College of the Augustals. It is an enormous space, with some of the second floor still in tact. You can tell this because you can see the remains of timbers that once supported the second storey. Herculaneum’s great secret is that the super heated mud that destroyed the city also preserved timbers by turning them almost instantly to charcoal.

This remarkable preservation of wood can be seen all over Herculaneum and not just supporting upper floors. Our next stop was the House of the Wooden Partition. Just in case you are wondering, it’s a house that contains a wooden partition! Of course this is a fabulous piece of detail that would normally be missing. Who knows how many homes in Pompeii had similar features? There are other buildings where we come across other surprises. There are houses with wooden landings around the edge of the main entrance, a shop complete with a wooden rack to hold curved storage jars, a complete laundry press and even a wooden wardrobe! All of these items are extremely fragile and are generally encased in clear Perspex.

Our next stop was the House of the Black Atrium. Here you can see well the diamond patterned brick walls that would normally have been hidden under plaster. The walls are covered in strangely beautiful designs where the bricks have been slightly weathered away but the cement hasn’t. We found a tiny alter in one of the rooms and Tina did a little acting as I photographed her worshiping the household gods.

At the House of the Beautiful Courtyard we get a really wonderful view of a two storey building. There’s even an enticing stone staircase leading you up to the rooms on the first floor. Sadly we are only able to look as it is fenced off, presumably because those upper rooms now only exist in our imagination.

Pompeii was discovered in the 17^th century and was raided for many years for its treasures. This even included many of the amazing mosaics and plaster frescos. Herculaneum is slightly different and thankfully we don’t need to visit a Museum in Naples to see some of the greatest Roman works of art. In the House of Neptune and Amphitrite we found one of the sites greatest treasures. It is a jewel like mosaic depicting the two deities that give the house its name. It is made up of the finest coloured tiles.

Eventually we found ourselves standing in front of the Great Gymnasium but it doesn’t look quite as great as it once did. This is because the sloping roadway we walked down earlier is still standing on top of most of it. There is a slight gap where the road is carried across on a vast bridge – it didn’t look like that from above. Despite being unable to excavate most of this area, it has been possible to carve tunnels into the gymnasium. In one of these we found a bronze fountain depicting a five headed hydra entwined around a bronze tree. It’s a really eerie experience seeing this subterranean world. But this was often the view that the first explorers came across.

Next stop was the garden of the House of the Deer. This is a bit of a tame name; I’d have gone for the House of the Drunken Hercules myself. This garden is full of wonderful statues. The house gets its real name from a pair of beautifully carved deer that are being viciously attacked by packs of hounds. But Hercules is my favourite as he’s not depicted in the normal hero pose. In fact he seems to be urinating after a rather heavy night of debauchery.

Inside the House of the Deer was a real surprise. In one room is a perfect bronze bath tub. It looks so strange and out of place you can’t help wondering if it’s a joke being played by the archaeologists.

We finally made it all the way around the site and frankly we were getting pretty tired. Se we headed down towards the exit, pausing for a moment to admire some beautifully carved stone plaques depicting three ancient Roman gods - Mercury, Minerva and Neptune. I was really pleased with myself for correctly identifying them; Mercury from his winged sandals and Neptune from his trident. I was less sure about Minerva but the helmet made me think of her or possibly Diana.

Your last view of ancient Herculaneum is the old harbour as you step off the land and onto a bridge crossing a marshy pool where the sea used to be. As we looked back we saw a series of arches. On my last visit some of these had been boarded up, but we had seen skeletons through the gaps. This time there was no sign of the people who had perished whilst trying to seek shelter in these bunker like structures.

Before leaving the site we decided we were desperately in need of something cool and found ourselves a table at the tiny little café on site. It was tremendously busy and everyone was trying to find a shady spot, but we would have put up with anything at that point. After a short break we decided it was time to split up. Dad had made up his mind to go back to Pompeii and see what he had missed yesterday. Tina and I however had other plans. For three days it had loomed over us and now we wanted to climb Mount Vesuvius.

We had read the guidebooks and knew that mini buses would take people from the railway station at Ercolano up to the volcano. However one thing we hadn’t banked on was the “mad dogs and English men” factor. It had gone midday now and it was incredibly hot. Perhaps not surprisingly there were no taxis waiting. We wandered around a bit before spying the premises of the company that ran the trips.

The staff were very friendly and invited us in to wait for the next minibus. We plonked ourselves down on a rather battered sofa and waited … and waited. After about 45 minutes we began to realise that even if a minibus did turn up, we would be the only passengers. If we were the only passengers and managed to make it to Vesuvius, could we really rely on these guys to bring us back down? After quickly conferring, we decided to call it a day and headed back to the station. I suppose my top tip would be to make sure you climb Vesuvius first thing in the morning. There had been loads of minibuses here then and we would have found plenty of drivers willing to bring us back down afterwards.

In the end we caught the first train heading to Sorrento. However as we sat wondering what to do next, we remembered a stop a little way down the line at Stabia, where a cable car rises up the sheer cliff face. We had no idea where it went, but thought it might make a good alternative to climbing Vesuvius.

Well it certainly would have, if only we hadn’t spent so long waiting for non-existent taxis! Sadly we arrived just after the last car had left. We had to make do with waving at the last one to come down – as everyone on board waved back. So another top tip is to get there earlier in the day and if you do make it to the top, please let me know if it was worth it!

Oh well, it was time to head back to Sorrento and do some serious shopping.