We disembarked the Jade at 8 am to be on our own today in
Naples and Herculaneum. From the port we
walked to the central train station, bought our ticket, and descended to the
train tracks where we found lots of people and trains, but no drivers and no trains
listed on the overhead monitors. It
appears the train operators were instituting a “slow down”. After waiting 15 minutes a train finally left
and our train to Herculaneum left shortly thereafter. On our walk to the train station we found the
streets dirty and littered with trash, although in one square a man with a
whisk broom was trying to keep the square unlettered (it will take more than a
whisk broom to clean things up).
Upon arriving at Herculaneum, we walked to the site of the
resort city of Herculaneum which was covered in mud from the Mt. Vesusius in 62
AD. We had visited Pompeii on a previous trip to Italy which has more extensive ruins, but it not as well preserved due to the lava and digging that had to take place. Pompeii was 5 stops up on the train. In Herculaneum, the mud helped preserve the building
and people and over 300 bodies were recovered since the 1980’s. The resort city had a population of around
4000 and excavation began in 1738 and continue until today. The small size of the city and the fact that
no buildings were built on top of it made it easier to excavate and
restore. You will see many pictures
below from the buildings and ruins.
After Herculaneum, we took the train back to Naples and on
foot traversed the city streets for 5 hrs. stopping in at various churches in
their palazzos. We could not take pictures inside the churches. One church in particular is dedicated (see the skull pic) to the lost souls in purgatory. Unfortunately we could not go down into the bowels of the churchh to see the bodies of the lost souls. Look at the typical butcher shop and fish market we passed in a street. Many structures were
destroyed by the Nazis in WWII who wanted to leave nothing left for the
approaching American army.
One structure I particularly wanted to see was the opera
house of San Carlos which is the oldest opera house in Europe being built
around 11 years before the opera house in Paris. The original opera house built by Charles of
Bourbon burned down and was rebuilt shortly thereafter. We got a private tour of the structure by a
delightful guide who filled us in on the importance of culture in Naples and
its place as an Italian city. It is the
3rd largest city in Italy and in the 1500’s was the capital of
Italy. Today it is viewed as a
step-sister to Rome and Milan.
We returned to the Jade around 4 pm. Tonight we pack as we leave the cruise and
Jade early tomorrow morning. Upon
leaving the Jade we will take the train to the Rome airport and board an early
afternoon flight to Cairo. We have been
in contact with our Egyptian guide and he and his representative will meet us
at the Cairo airport and transport us to our Western hotel on the Nile river where
we go on a dinner cruise on the Nile with Egyptian entertainment. Mr. Abaza feels the situation is better in
Egypt (probably because the military is stepping in to control the protesters). We will see. We are scheduled to spend Thursday in Cairo, fly to Luxor to view the Valley of the Kings on Friday, motor to Alexandria on Saturday and fly back to Rome on Sunday.
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