I spent the afternoon exploring Pompeii. It was raining, but we went anyway. I visited the temple of Apollo, the Basilica, the forum, the amphitheatre, and many other sites of the ancient city. Most of the city is from 2nd century B.C., but some things in the city date back to the 6th century B.C. I didn’t expect Pompeii to be as large as it was. It covered more area than we were able to walk while we were there. Many of the walls have old frescoes. The city was covered in ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted on 24 August 79 A.D. A famous historian, Pliny the Younger, watched the eruption and recorded his account of what took place. Violent tremors occurred that morning and then a column of volcanic material was sent over 20,000 meters into the sky. Within a few hours, the town was covered with 3 meters of volcanic ash. It cause many buildings to collapse and killed the people inside. The first pyroclastic flow occurred the next morning. Pyroclastic flows are masses of rock and hot gas from volcanoes that can move as fast as 200 meters per second. The people of Pompeii were killed instantly. There was a second flow later which knocked down many of the walls of the city.
Pompeii was rediscovered in 1748 and excavations began. We saw the plaster casts of some of the citizens of Pompeii while we were there. Because the victims were covered in ash which turned to rock so quickly, there are cavities left in the ground where they had been. The director of the excavation at Pompeii from 1860 to 1875 invented a method of plaster casting that was used in Pompeii and is still in use today. Liquid plaster was poured into the cavities left in the ground to see the forms of the people who were killed. The excavations are still going on today, since there are so many new discoveries, both historical and scientific.
I also took a ferry out to the island of Capri. The weather forecast for the day was sunny and sixty six degrees Fahrenheit. The ride was beautiful. We could see the cliffs of Sorrento and Mount Vesuvius in the distance. We pulled into Capri town and saw all the white buildings dotting the hillside rising up from the sea. Our original plan had been to see the Blue Grotto, but it was cloudy and we had read that we shouldn’t go if the weather was bad. We decided to go to Anacapri, another town, and then take a chairlift up to the top of the island so that we could see all the coast line. However, when we got to Anacapri, it started to rain. We ate lunch, but the rain turned out to be really persistent. The storm was thunder and lightning, so we decided to go back to the ferry before the weather got any worse. However, it got a lot worse. While we were on the bus started to hail and the roads began to flood. Water was gushing everywhere and the hail was pelting the bus. We were riding alongside cliffs, and the bus was still going fast over at least six inches of water. When we got off, we got drenched and were standing in water higher than our ankles. There’s a video in the side bar of this website from our bus ride.
Dr. Webb frequently says to us that light packer is a happy traveler. I took a book bag with me for the weekend with two pair of shoes, Converses and Birkenstocks. I was being really optimistic about the weather. The downpour on Capri completely drenched my Converses, so I found one of the times when packing light is not the best choice. I wore wet shoes for one day and sandals with socks the next!
Despite the rain and hail, we still walked out on a rock beach and I put my feet in the Mediterranean. Compared to all the hail and water I had just walked through, the water was warm. Since my shoes and jeans were already soaked, I just stepped in with my shoes on! I have always wanted to see the Mediterranean, so it didn’t matter to me that nothing went according to plan. We spent some time walking on the beach looking for sea glass and then went back to Sorrento, where I got to do something else I have always wanted to do. At the restaurant I ordered a fish that came whole with the head, fins, and bones. Our waiter removed the meat for us. It was really good and I felt it was the perfect thing to eat on the coast.
Since it was still raining, Emily, Brianna, and I decided to go to the movies and see the new Harry Potter movie in Italian, Harry Potter e i Doni della Morte Parte Uno. I understood more than I expected to understand. It was fun to be in the theatre with Italians. The theatre was packed and as soon as the room was darkened, everyone clapped and cheered. They are a much more animated audience than American movie goers and reacted as if they were seeing a live performance.
Visiting the south of Italy was a good experience. The North and South of Italy are drastically different from one another. The South is more agricultural and less wealthy than the North. At the time of Italian unification, the North was controlled by independent city states. The South was mainly controlled by the Catholic Church. When unification took place, the Kingdom of Piemonte, in the North, became the government of the entire state. The North and South have stayed very different since then. Even the Italian dialect is different in the South. I had a harder time understanding the Italian used in Napoli than I do the Tuscan Italian that I have been learning this semester.
Ciao,
Meredith
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