As I wrote in my last post, I winged my way to Naples for a short holiday full of Classic nerd goodness, this post is part two of that tale.
Nothing is ever really goes to completely to plan when one goes on holiday and this trip proved to be no exception. The Italians threw a spanner in my works and held a strike on my last day which meant no trains or buses. This meant no site visiting on that day and therefore a hasty reorganisation of my priorities. I now had one day of public transport and two sites to visit (Herculaneum and Mt Vesuvius). I could’ve squeezed them into one day but I decided on the less stressful option (I was on holiday after all) and opted to visit one on this trip and the other in the future. It was a close decision but ultimately Herculaneum won, the deciding factor being that my sole pair of boots were dying (right) and would survive a jaunt around a small town much better than a trek up a volcano. Sadly this means the rest of my homage to Virgil’s Aeneid (urbes puellamque cano…) is now rendered obsolete. I had written another three lines where climbing Vesuvius was mentioned, but alas that turned out to be premature. Sigh.
Getting to Herculaneum turned out to be a bit of a drawn-out affair. I had walked the route home from the train station the day before and so I decided that I could walk the same route to the station that morning. Unfortunately (and rather unusually) I hadn’t paid as much attention at the train station end of the walk as I should have done. I knew the basic direction – along the waterfront and then turn left at a right angle towards the Piazza Garibaldi. No problem there then. Except that I missed my left hand turn and instead ended up walking along some parallel street were none of the peddlers, piles of rubbish or shop windows were even remotely familiar. Now, the next statement might not sound so convincing right at this very moment, but bear with me: I do actually have a pretty excellent sense of direction. I refer to it as my pigeon magnet, located somewhere in my nose. That’s not a medically proven and justified condition, but its colourful enough description so it’ll do me. Put me in an urban jungle and chances are good that my pigeon magnet will get me to my destination. Put me in a real jungle…and I’ll probably get eaten by jaguars. That is why I’d have a guide if I were to ever go on safari, or I’d at least learn how to find North without resorting to a compass. But it’s in the city that I stand a chance, and my pigeon magnet told me I was kinda on the right track. On this occasion it proved its worth and I came across the station with my map still firmly in my pocket and a slightly smug expression on my face.
Once at the station any smug expression quickly disappeared as I caught the wrong train (d’oh). I opted for the dignified reaction and rather quietly got off the train wearing a ‘no, I’m not lost, I meant to get off here’ expression. The exit station in question turned out to be a rather sleepy little place with a total of two other souls on it. Luckily, the lady waiting on the platform seemed to understand what I meant when I asked “Napoli?” and pointed emphatically to the station platform. Or maybe she didn’t because she asked the only other soul if he spoke English, which he did (a little, similar to the amount of Italian I can speak) and he confirmed that I was indeed on the right platform. Eventually a train arrived going to Naples (hurrah!) and I got to start my journey over again (not so hurrah!). This time I practised the art of caution and asked on the station at Naples if the train would be stopping at Herculaneum and between the German couple and the French couple that were also there the five of us all boarded the correct train.
Herculaneum suffered a rather different fate than Pompeii when Vesuvius blew its top. It was hit by a pyroclastic flow, rather than ash, which meant that perishable objects such as wood, rope and iron survived. 
For example, some of the windows in the houses still have their iron grills in situ which gives the visitor a bit more of a feel for the building’s original character. Just so you know how much of a nerd I am – I geeked out when I saw this (and no, I’m not kidding). The scale of destruction is immediately obvious when you arrive at the site. Herculaneum sits slightly below the modern town, and is accessed by a bridge that crosses over what looks like a moat. This isn’t a moat, but where the ancient shoreline stood before 79AD and it illustrates just how deeply the town was swamped during that eruption. Three hundred or so skeletons of people who didn’t evacuate in time were discovered on this ancient shoreline during excavations, which is a sobering thought. The photo below was taken on the ancient shoreline and looking towards the bridge that crosses into the site.
In comparison with Pompeii, much less of Herculaneum has been excavated which makes for a less exhausting visit. However, Herculaneum offers a bit more than Pompeii when it comes to what is still standing and as a result you need less of an imagination to envision what the ancient town would have looked like. 
Most of the houses were also open and therefore able to be explored. A lot of the rooms seemed to have mosaic floors and painted walls (oh, how I geeked out at this sight). Coming across cases with objects that would have otherwise been lost to time also brought about unashamed moments of nerdness – I’ve never been so excited by a piece of wood as I was on that day. The remaining wall paintings in the College of the Augustales (depicting the myth of Hercules, left and below) were particularly striking, as was the mosaic of Neptune and Amphitrite in the House of Neptune and Amphitrite (right).
My last day in Naples was spent within the confines of the city due to the aforementioned strike. This meant a day of museum visiting and generally enjoying the environs of the city. Now, before you skip to the bottom of the paragraph because you’ve read the word museum, I would like to point out that this museum had a somewhat erotic exhibit of Roman art. Bet I have your attention now? Well, possibly not for any of you who have studied Classical art, in which case you’ll be quite used to such things.
The main exhibit in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples (aside from the porn and plaster casts of Pompeians) is the Alexander mosaic. It is surprisingly large, incredibly impressive and an excellent example of ancient mosaic. I’m not sure if it was the artist’s intent, but I find the images of Darius and his army much more engaging than that of Alexander; maybe because their sense of panic translates stronger for me than Alexander’s sense of victory. Sure, the victorious Alexander is striking figure in the mosaic, yet I can’t quite help but feel more for the poor fellow who is about to be trapped beneath his own shield, particularly as his pained expression is reflected back to the viewer.
Surprises over size seem to abound at this museum. I knew the Alexander mosaic was large, but its scale was mind blowing. On the other hand, I had assumed that the quartet of dying barbarians were life size, much like the sculpture of the dying Gaul in Rome. They’re not; in fact they are decidedly hobbit size in proportion to the Gaul. Similarly, I thought that the sculpture of Pan *ahem* ‘servicing’ the nanny goat was larger but it wouldn’t be out of place sitting in someone’s garden. Well, maybe its content it would make it out of place…
The Gabinetto Segreto (‘secret room’) in the museum that hosts the Pan/nanny goat sculpture (amongst other similar pieces of art) elicits giggles and camera clicking from most patrons. Maybe they don’t expect such images from two thousand years ago? Whatever the reason, it reduces many of its visitors to giggly adolescents. These images have caused some consternation since they were discovered, partly due to a tendency to view them through contemporary mores instead of approaching the subject from a more ancient perspective. Some of the pieces show a definite sense of humour, such as the painting of Pan’s reaction after coming across a sleeping hermaphrodite. Pan had assumed the sleeping individual was of a singular feminine gender, but golly didn’t he have a nasty shock when he lifted the covers. The painting shows him fleeing from the scene while the hermaphrodite looks almost disappointed. Others are less erotic and more ambiguous in what they’re depicting such as the lover leaving the bed and her companion whilst another individual hovers in the background. A lingering moment where the two were holding hands suggests something more tender than what you might otherwise expect (or maybe he’s just checking out her derrière).
Having wandered around the museum not once but twice, I concluded that the plaster casts of Pompeians were in one of the inaccessible rooms. Along with what felt like half of the museum’s artifacts. Either that or there was a secret book that I needed to pull out of a bookcase in order to access those rooms. Failing to find any bookshelves or further hidden rooms, I left the museum and spent the remainder of the day wandering the city, dodging scooters on footpaths and deliberating between pasta or pizza for dinner. I settled on pasta.
Despite it now being somewhat inaccurate, this is my homage ot Virgil’s Aeneid, tentatively titled the Lizzieid. Before you think that I would dare compare myself to the incomparable Virgil, this was written with my tongue very much in my cheek. Even then it was perhaps a bit ambitious of me to attempt such a feat, especially considering that I haven’t written anything in Latin for ten years now. But here goes:
Urbes puellamque cano in Campania prisca
Novae Zealandae apteryx australis ab oris
Vesuvium dormitorium ascendit et ruinae
investigavit Pompeiorumque urbis HerculisI sing of cities and a girl in ancient Campania
A Kiwi from the shores of New Zealand
She climbed sleeping Vesuvius and
investigated the ruins of Pompeii and the city of Hercules
The next line was going to be something like ‘Oh Muse, inspire her feathered beak…’ (in keeping with the Kiwi description) but it never eventuated. Points of awesomeness will be awarded for anyone who alerts me to any corrections that need to be made.