Pompeii

Growing up, I was always fascinated with history.  Most of my reading and interest was consumed with histories, ranging from the ancient world through to more modern topics such as World War II.  The history of the Roman Republic and Empire always held particularly strong hold on me.  Any reading of Roman histories was always bound to at some point go through the story of Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius.

We left Positano early in the morning and we had arranged for a car to drive us to Naples.  Since it was on the way, we had booked in a stop at the Pompeii historical site.  

There were tourists everywhere (as you would expect), but the heat of the day was almost overwhelming.  With almost no shade or cover, everyone was fully exposed the beating hammer of the sun.  One enterprising tourist had managed to find an enormous beach umbrella and was carrying it around with her to provide some additional respite.  Our guide seemed to be suffering more than most and spent most of the time trying to splash water on himself.  He was friendly and struck up a friendship with Veronica over their shared love of expensive sunglasses.  He was particularly delighted when Veronica noted how nice his Tom Ford sunglasses looked.  Recognising the effort he had put in seemed to make his day.

We only had a few hours, so we wanted to see some of the key sights.  The location is truly enormous, and it would be possible to spend an entire day slowly exploring all of the sights.  We didn't have that much time though.  Even if we did have the time, with the intense heat of the day, I don't think any of us would have lasted.  After about half an hour, our guide had run out of water and looked to be struggling.  I had a two litre bottle fresh out of the fridge in my bag, I brought it out and offered him a refill.  He eagerly accepted and responded with surprise when he took the first drink "oh my god, it's still cold!"

Refreshed, we continued walking and our guide took us to various spots around the city.  We saw the old ruins, the tragic plaster casts of those who had perished, the beautiful details around the streets and buildings that we would have completely missed if it were not for our guide.  It was the little things that I appreciated the most.  He pointed to the ground, and showed us the small chips of marble that were embedded into the road, placed to help reflect light up to aid with the evening transport of goods.  He showed us the hand marks at the fountains where people leaned in to drink, the showed us the small symbols carved into the walls.

It was all fascinating, but what really opened my eyes with wonder was when he brought us into one of the grand old villas which once contained an enormous mosaic depicting Alexander the Great charging towards Darius III.  The moment I saw this, I immediately exclaimed that it was Alexander charging towards Darius III.  I was astounded by this mosaic (which I later found out from the guide was a replica as the original had been moved to a museum in Naples).  It was an image I had seen countless times growing up in textbooks and documentaries.  I had no idea that it had originally been found here.  Our guide looked at me with surprise and declared that I was a unicorn - one of the few people he took around who actually knew anything about the history.  It was a nice compliment to receive.  We had been chatting throughout his tour, and I had been randomly asking questions here and there which probably put him on notice that I at the very least, knew something rather than nothing about our surrounds.  But now that he was convinced, he took extra care with us.  He looked at his watch and declared that we should go to another spot.  He took us to the old amphitheatre and demonstrated with claps the incredible acoustics of the place.  I was immediately taken back to when I was in Ephesus with the guys, all those years ago.  I remembered how amazed we all were walking through those ruins and how we all stood on the stage of that amphitheatre, yelling out obscenities to each other to see whether it was audible at the top row of seats.

With our tour done, we said our goodbyes to our tour guide and found the driver.  The next stop was to a local vineyard.  Our tour through the region had been done at a fast pace, but I wanted to take Veronica to at least one Italian vineyard on our trip.  We didn't have time to go up to Tuscany, so a short visit to one of the vineyards in the shadows of Mount Vesuvius seemed to be the next best option.  Our driver left the highway and started circling through what felt like quiet suburbs, until it opened up in row after row of vines.  He parked the car as we went in and sat down for our lunch. 

We sat looking out towards the vineyards and the mountains.  The food was as we had come to expect, hearty and cooked in a lovely homely fashion.  As always, the quality of the ingredients shone through as we ate.  I thought about what our guide had said.  This land was so fertile.  People from around the world had come here to trade, and they had brought the seeds of fruits and vegetables with them.  What had been small and tasteless changed once it was brought into contact with this deep and black soil, with the intense sun and with the plentiful water.  There was the constant bargain that the people lived with, the perpetual danger of Mount Vesuvius, but in exchange they received a true bounty that we were still eating.  The wines were brought with each course, each one being a local variety.  They tasted of minerals, having soaked up the nutrients from this amazing land.