Herculaneum

Today we visited the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum which like Pompeii was lost in the eruption of Mount Versuvius in AD79. Unlike Pompeii Herculaneum can be seen in almost its original splendor as it was buried in up to 19m of ash (Pompeii just 4m) which preserved the upper stories of the buildings. Also the ash was hotter which preserved the wooden parts of the buildings, food and even bodies. Herculaneum was a wealthier city than Pompeii so there is a large number of fine houses with lavish use of marble and mosaics. It is estimated the city was approximately 20 hectares housing a population of 4000, only 4.5 hectares has been excavated. The site is surrounded by apartment blocks.

It was a great place for 'Hide & Seek' as it was a bit like a maze and hard to find your way around. The decoration inside some of the houses was amazing, beautiful mosaics and frescos on the walls and floors and intricate carving details. The Taberna's  were interesting, (see pic below) they were basically pubs with a large marble counter which housed large dolia jars which contained food.  They were widespread and served hot food and drinks as it was unusual to eat your midday meal at home.

Mosaic of Neptune and Amphitrite

Pub with  dolia jars.

Remember this is 2000 years old!

Street water fountain

Crazy Naples and Volcano Solfatara

We slept for a few hours at a service station just south of Rome then continued to Napoli on Sunday morning. 

It was just the day for our GPS to give up the ghost on the outskirts of Napoli!! We ended up in the centre of Napoli down by the docks in completely manic traffic towing our not unsubstantial caravan. There were cars and scooters going in every direction, it was a complete free for all and of course no-one wanted to be behind a caravan. At one point a friendly cafe owner frantically waved us down indicating we couldn't go any further down the road as it got too narrow and helped us do a 3-point turn in the middle of this chaos.

We tried to ask for directions to our campsite in our non-existent Italian and the lovely man hopped in his car so we could follow him to our destination.

Our campsite is situated in the shallow crater of the volcano Solfatara in Pozzuoli on the outskirts of Naples. It's a dormant volcano having last erupted in 1198. It lets off jets of steam (which come through the tarmac on the roads around it) and sulfurous gases which have been used for medicinal purposes since ancient times. It's also the site  where the bacteria Sulfolobus was isolated and where two saints were beheaded in 305.

Alex and Charlie collected some crystals from one of the old steam rooms and tried to re-grow them (with limited success) but successfully melted chocolate and marshmallows in the hot rocks.

Pozzuoli was a great base to explore the area. There was a fantastic pizza place and probably the 'best rotisserie chicken I've ever had tasted.

Pizza Chef??

1 Metre of Pizza

It's a hit!

Our Campsite in the Volcano!!

Charlie uses the dive mask to stop the smell of Sulphur!

Growing crystals