Another really early start. 6:30 bags out the door leave by 7:20. Unfortunately whilst man handling my suitcase I somehow dropped, shoved, moved my case onto my toe. Hurt like a buggery blood everywhere :(. Not sure if at this stage if whole nail broken but I wrapped it up and motored on with the day.
Saw Sharon for breakfast, nice to have someone save me a seat :). Though she made the mistake on sitting with, or they sat with her, Ms Complainalot and her friend Ms Shouldhavecomealonefeelingresentfulnow. Complainalot obviously had nothing good or positive to say, spoke about being terrified in Sorrento and being offered water on the side of the street! Heaven forbid!!! She was very dismissive of the lovely waiter there. She is not doing herself any favours and I will do my utmost not to sit near her again.
We watched poor Salvatore load our luggage yet again on the bus... Poor guy... I would help but am useless as puzzles and can barely stack my own dishwasher! Then we headed to Pompeii. I was particularly excited to go. After being lulled into a mini snooze by our tour guides voice again... Not ideal lol we arrived and were met by our local guide.
It was amazing to think the entire town was destroyed along with its occupants over the course of two days. I had imagined seeing people frozen in time and space but as I learnt it was almost. Impossible to do this. The archeologists when excavating would listen to hollow sounds indicating a crevice. These spaces were actually human forms. Their bodies had been totally eroded by the volcanic material that eventually enveloped them. Only the spaces in the shape of people remained. The archeologists then piped liquid plaster into the space essentially making a mould of the person / animal that was there. Now don't quote me on the above but it was something along those lines. Scientist think from evidence collected and the recount of a boy who saw the event (?) that there may have been a break in the volcanic activity eg heaps of ash and small rocks spewed from the volcano but then stopped. The theory is that the occupants thought that that was the end of the disaster and thus stayed. The next day the heat and gases exploded from the volcano all but obliterating those in its path. Often remains were found covering their faces in a defensive stance as a result of the over 200 degree temperatures. Remains of gladiators chained in their holding cells and animals tethered to homes could not even begin to escape. That said even given time the rest of the bustling quite affluent town of Pompeii was destroyed.
I didn't realise that the whole of the town of Pompeii wasn't even discovered until relatively recently as the whole town was covered in volcanic material. Other communities had built upon it. There was one newer houses / buildings still remaining to show the depth that the town was buried - about 7m below. Even the coast line had changed. The original town on Pompeii was a few hundred metres from the coast whereas now it's a couple of kilometres!!!
The town itself was an awesome look back in time. The Romans knew how to live! They had many advancements which I think I would have said were much more modern eg retractable roofs over stadiums, bath houses, steam rooms, plumbing, shopping alleys etc. Pompeii was a busy centre with a hierarchy involving slaves, workers in shops, hotels, working and very popular brothels were there were illustrations above doors of certain positions and expertise of the ladies! They had one brothel that was quite well preserved with illustrations. Amazing how mankind doesn't change. What each generation thinks is new and risqué is in fact just the normal process of exploration and discovery. Nothing is new lol. That along with the phallic symbols sticking out of doors and engraved on floors provided some stifled giggles from our group.
Piled bk on the bus headed for 5 hrs to Assisi
Nothing much to report about the bus drive, except to say front of the bus is hard because you keep catching the eye of the tour guide and have to pretend to be engaged and listening. While I enjoy learning about Italian history and my surroundings a full two hours of chatter chatter talk talk jabber jabber ... And I thought I could talk!! Seriously our tour guide is incredibly knowledgeable but she does not have a filter and she is definitely selling for the company, which can leave you feeling a bit of a pawn in the machine called tourism. She is losing the attention of many people on the bus.
We were stopping at a big church before the hotel and I thought 'woo hoo another church/cathedral' as I'm such a churchy girl myself. Walking up to the basilica we saw (and i almost walked into eck!) Franciscan monks dressed in their robes. The church was built to commemorate the life of Saint Francis. His basic story, and excuse me if i get some of the details wrong of glean over some finer points, I don't mean to sound flippant. He was the son of a wealthy merchant, who lived a privileged life. His father wanted him to go into the family business but decided to become a knight. He fought and was jailed for... Insert small crime.... Whilst he was in jail he look at all the poor souls, the ones without rich relatives to come and save them, the people who were essentially left to rot. Once out of jail he went to the town square and divested himself of all of his belongings including clothes ( quite a sight in those times, not like today when this is a common occurrence, even a rite of passage for many young Australian males lol). He then spent his life helping the poor, raising funds and fighting injustice and corruption in the church. In Assisi they built an amazing basilica to honour him, almost designed like a huge crypt, with his tomb below.
We had a fantastic local guide who explained the significance of the art work and architecture, along with the history of the area and a drop of philosophy. It really was fantastic. The basilica was completed many years before the Sistine Chaple and even the Vatican's existence. It had the most brilliant blues and colours throughout. Gold leaf and lapis was used to illustrate various stories. It was far more vibrant than any other place we had seen including the Sistine Chapel and Saint Peter's in Rome. I didn't realise but in the time when it was built the local poorer majority of the population would never had seen coloured paintings like this before. Nor would they have seen windows stain glass or other as only the wealthy could afford these in their houses. It was just simply beautiful and if was Catholic, I think it would be a lovely place to sit and contemplate the meaning of life. Aslo another interesting fact is that during WWII the monks in the church saved the jews of the whole town. They allowed the 300-200 Jews to live in the space between the crypt level and church level, almost a full floor. While they were in hiding someone in the town made them all fake papers and essentislly saved all of them from being slaughtered.
Our guide was a character, funny and informative with a couple of great ideas and philosophies. Such as:
- we can get caught up in discussing being horrified by evil, nasty, the wronged people in history or on the news it is just as important to give equal time and space to those who do goods are good bring good
- Saint Valentine was actually a man who lived in roman times. During this period any young male who was not married were taken by the roman army for service. Saint valentine realised thus and organised for a mass set of marriages, essentially saving an entire towns population of males. Hence he is remembered every yr a person who saved lives using love... A bit f
- Saint Francis became friends with the sultan of Egypt. They both tried to convert each other until both realised they could not. Despite their differences they remained strong friends and this successful relationship has been used to encourage and to provide a model for modern peace talks
- this story teaches us we should learn to understand and respect each others religions and cultures and not just tolerate them like we would tolerate a pebble in a shoe
-our tour guide also had this lovely explanation about different perspectives. He said that we are all people standing on a round ball, everyone looks out from a different position and sees the world I front of them from a different perspective. This is good to remember when finding it hard to comprehend an understanding of someone else's thinking.
Saint Francis was the patron saint of nature so there were a few ideas about our relationships with nature and relationships in general.
- we can only communicate with people and nature, unless we have love. Well not sure I agree with that but certainly you can't communicate without a genuine interest.
- love needs to be recharged, whether it be every season, every year, whether it be for a husband, pet, country. This was compared to nature and I guess similarly to the regeneration of nature , it needs to be cultivated.
Anyway the above sounds a bit naff as I type it but at the time when I heard it, it all seemed to make sense.
After the tour and the huffing and puffing of my fellow travellers up three stairs, we had coffee and biscuits in a cute cafe. Headed to the hotel a d got our rooms. A modern hotel but a bit of a tourist factory. Had a un impressive group dinner and chatted to more Americans. They seem easier to take when in smaller groups.
We stayed chatting for a while but noticed some tension in the ranks. A family of Americans - a cool group with a younger daughter and aunt, mother and father newly married good sense of humour. They were flapping about, angry about how they had been treated, how this had happened this hadn't happened, we paid this amount for this service, not enough if this. Basically they were needing to vent, all good. I get the need to do this but I think they are surveying and collecting followers. I feel mutiny in the ranks. Knowing how these things tend to work, cycling into a frenzy of negativity, I think I'm enjoying watching from the sidelines and being very much non committal. Sat talking and listening to the history of native Americans and watching the mum get emotional about her childhood and then being asked to sign their petition about changing the Washington redskins football teams name as it is quite racially insensitive and quite insulting. Then time for bed! Far too late.
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