Frescoes & Tiles & Bones, Oh, My!

"For us to go to Italy and to penetrate into Italy is like a most fascinating act of self-discovery. Back, back down the old ways of time. Strange and wonderful chords awake in us, and vibrate again after many hundreds of years of complete forgetfulness."

                                   D.H. Lawrence  

    If you plan to visit the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum you might want to make an overnight stay nearby.  Have we got a B&B for you!  Certe Notti... (Some Nights...)is an oasis of safety, comfort and warm hospitality.  A tail wagging welcome came free from a Golden Retriever named Romeo.

Orange and lemon trees laden with fruit were just a reach away from our balcony.

















    And a truly terrific and informative pair of hosts, Antonio and Ione, made us feel right at home.

The breakfast was good,too.


  
     True, the modern day Pompeii is not so pretty, but a stay at the Certe Notti B&B, behind the gated courtyard, is guaranteed to be very pretty indeed.

     Six years ago we visited the ruins of Pompeii with our friends, Roger and Kristen.  This time we visited its sister city in tragedy, Herculaneum (now called Ercolano.)
     Because our Jeremy Irons-sounding GPS sent us on a long and serpentine route through the modern city of Ercolano...IN POURING DOWN RAIN, Jim was ready to give up and look for the Autostrada heading south toward Sicily. Neither Jim nor the cold and rainy weather would dissuade me.

     Apparently the conditions dissuaded just about everyone else, though.  We may have seen four other visitors during our time among the ruins.

     And one under-employed guide saw us.  

     Jim is convinced he is most likely a "self-employed" guide who makes his living lurking around the ruins waiting for bedazzled visitors (okay, that would be me) in need of explanations. I didn't care about his credentials or that his English was as bad as our Italian. (Though I will admit that the badge he sported could be had at one's local Kinko's via the copy machine and a run through that plasticizing thingey.) He lead us through the ruins with the enthusiasm of a real estate agent at his first open house.

     When a sulphur-belching Vesuvius erupted on that August day in 79 AD, because of the pyroclastic flow (this gets a little complicated so click here for some really fascinating stuff) and the gunk that rolled down before it, many roofs in Herculaneum (unlike Pompeii)were left intact.    

 
  By luck of that same roll, many gorgeous floor tiles, frescoes and mosaic art pieces were spared.

Even lead water pipes made it through,

evidence of the origin of lead found in the human remains, (bones) discovered huddled in the boat houses.  There were approximately 5,000 people in this wealthy spa town before Vesuvius took violent possession of her.

     As a character in a favorite British movie of ours states:  "History, it's just one #@%*ing thing after another."



     How did we get into these houses?

     Easy.

     Because there were no other people around, our "guide" simply pushed aside rope barricades and waved us in, while I pushed aside thoughts of the Carabinieri putting a sudden stop to our exclusive (hmm, maybe illegal)tour.

     At one point he took us to view three skeletons.  When Jim wasn't sure he could get a clear photo through the plexiglass lid, our man simply removed the safety bands and lifted it.

We are so going to hell for this!

     So, if you go to Herculaneum, try to make it on a cold and rainy day and wait for a "guide" to approach you.  It cost us only 10 Euros.

Susan,

still sniffing for sulphur.