TRAVEL ITALY: Pompei, Herculaneum and Castel Sain'Angelo

MONDAY 27TH JANUARY

Got the train to Rome arriving at 9 and getting the 9.20 to Napoli arriving in an hour having decided to go via the High Speed train. Got the local Napoli train onto the Sorrento line and got out at Erculo Scavi. You exit the station, and walk straight down the hill about 400m arriving at the entrance to Herculaneum. It's a small town like area, quite poor looking, shabby with lots of graffiti, but we came here for the ruins, not to shop.
You walk over a long bridge area over the ruins. Its amazing, much better condition than Pompei as it was further away from Vesuvius when it erupted, instead getting covered in a cloud of ash. It's AMAZING! It just looks like an old abandoned town from 100 or so years ago its in such good condition, up to 3 stories remaining in some areas!
We snacked on our packed lunch, it was quiet, barely anyone about, making it more fun to explore. We ate in someone's house, in the atrium, which was nearly 2000 years old! Frescoes still adorned the walls in pretty great condition, along with marble work tops and pots in different Taberna. There was even wooden steps and door frames remaining!!!! It's here where the famous and very resourceful "house of Papyrus" was found parts of which we saw in the museum on Friday. These rolls gave some of the best facts about the Roman era and daily day of life due to their preservation thanks to the volcanic eruption in 79AD.

We saw some of the public male and female baths, with greatly preserved marble baths, frescoes and mosaics depicting water Gods and Nymphs. Pillars stood full height, buildings basically intact in a few of the houses, shops and temples. Unfortunately the main larger public baths were closed, but we found something amazing whilst down there, under the "sacred forum" fascinating and terrible at the same time...in the archways underneath, almost in cellar like areas, where tens of - small, large, old, young, alone, together, hands clasped in support, curled and hidden in fear - skeletons. Perhaps up to 30 in these 5 or 6 archways. It was so terribly morbid. They had come here, terrified, fearing for their lives from something they didn't understand, hiding in somewhere safe, under a sacred area. But they were not safe. Although they would have prayed, cried, whispered final words of love and endearment, they were buried and died, alone and together underground in ash. Horrific. It was awful, seeing the skeleton mother with a small child clasped to her breast. A couple entwined in fear, another, head hidden under their hands. It was a pitiful sight.

 We explored onwards, sneakily going over barriers as no-one was around. I was on the first floor of someones house, I climbed ancient stairs! The Curbs and roads were amazing to walk upon, again huge stone slabs were placed together to form the roads and pathways, but here, the curbs were raised exceedingly high (obviously to keep off the horse dung) It was so liberating to explore this ancient UNESCO world Heritage site without hundreds of tourists.
Back at the exit/entrance, we could see some of the models of items that had been removed, mainly statues. We were thrilled to recognise them as ones we had seen at the Naples Museum of Archeology!

Back onto the local train (which runs twice hourly) we stopped at Pompeii Scavi, it was cold and had started to rain; a drizzle. We stopped in one of the restaurants and had a cappocino each to warm us up, the waiters were impressed that they guessed right away we were sisters...most Italians do.
This time we got in, we had bought a combination ticket for the 3 sites so we could just walk on in. I presumed it was small from what I'd seen last time and from our tour of Herculaneum. I was very wrong. We walked up a slight hill and under a huge arch to the entrance of the town, or what i guess could have been called a city then, IT WAS HUGE. 
Bleak and dreary today standing cold amongst these huge surrounding ruins, you could tell it was once bustling with life. In the archways of the centre was hundreds of pots and clay pieces, some statues and some of the casts. One of a man, and the famous dog, held in a glass container. Some of the coins in the fountain had melted into it due to the heat of the eruption, they were in such great condition I believed them to be from now, thinking people had chucked coins in for luck. 
We walked left, entering one of the first of many street filled with houses, villas and Taberna.
The map we had really gave no real indicator of size! Small streets cut between some houses, creating alleys, so much larger and unfortunately for us, confusing than Herculanum. Some of the streets with the huge Cobbled stone paths were actually indented, deeply in parts, from cart wheels, it was amazing! Here they used bigger slabs as forms of pedestrian road footpaths to keep civilians off the dirty horse road, some of the footpaths were nearly as high as Rebecca was tall (she is just over 5 foot to be fair) 
on near the bottom we came across what seem like a tomb and monument area, it was all quite eery. I kept cracking up because i kept loosing track of Rebecca, she was being slow staring at the ground for "souvenirs" We befriended some stray dogs which were now being looked after by the UNESCO people of the Pompeii site under the "Cave Canem" scheme, think of the famous, beware of the dog mosaic from Pompeii. 

We walked up along a tall embankment area around the bottom edge of pompeii, around the north gate and walls overlooking the town and Vesuvius in the background and some of the Huge remaining aqueducts. We passed many houses, Taberna, temples, atriums and horto areas. Unfortunately due to how close pompeii was, the amount of people who had visited and natural erosion over the years the majority of the places were sealed off, available to only look at from the paths, and there weren't very many remaining mosaics or frescoes, the remaining pieces having been saved from further ruin by transfer to the Naples Museum of Archeology  (another reason to visit! To see the highlight finds that are no longer viewable here) 
It started raining more heavily, it was getting late and dark, the exit was impossible to find as well, thankfully we did find it having spotted some of the amazing theatros and passing on the outside some of the ancient Roman  Parentalias and Necropolis' from 14-37AD 
We walked along the outside of the pompeii site and hopped back on the train. We headed to "dante" again for some shopping and dinner (more tasty cheap pizza!) This time our high speed train did up to 300km/h on its return! It was a bit concerning though that the first compartment we were on was smoking, and when we tried to get off and asked a conductor he just referred us to another compartment (we arrived safely though!)

It's almost disappointing when you arrive back in Rome, the Naples underground is far superior, newly refurbished, the trains and the stops are state of the art and beautifully decorated, Dante looks like a high end swimming spa resort with all its crystal blue mosaic tiles. Florence is still the nicest though!

TUESDAY 28TH JANUARY
Averrdici, ciao!

Having argued bitterly with my sister for not getting up early we were not able to do the final tow things on my list today, Castel Sain't Angelo was chosen, however villa Borghese was not (Sooo sad, there's Caravaggio works there! And the Villa Medici nearby) We arrived in central Rome around 11, and for once, the sun was out and it was a bit warm. Jackets were pulled off and we basked in the partial heat.
We viewed the lovely Piazza de papleo browsing shops on our way past as we strolled to Castel Sain'Angelo.Originally a mausoleum to Emperor Hadrian in 2AD it has, over the years been used as Barricks, a fort and stronghold, a prison, a treasury, papal rooms and finally, a museum. The Archangel Michael was said to have appeared on the roof of the moment plague of 590Ad. Hence the change of name to "saint angel castle" We crossed the Tiber river and the Pont Angelo, entering the monument,
following the spiral upwards procession just like thousands of Romans once had to pay respects to Hadrian, we came to the intersecting floor create by Pontif Alexander for a drawbridge and continued on up. here we viewed the museum section, seeing some beautiful greek and Roman artefacts, such as; Alexander the Great (Like Hadrian, also Diefied) Julius Ceasar, Marc Anthony and Octavian (the man who brought down the ruin of Cleopatra and Egypt) Although the Borgia rooms were not viewable, Paul III were, all beauitfully frescoed with a huge gallery sized library. more stairs finally led to the top terrace pverlooking all of Rome and guarded by the Stuatue of the Angel Michael (the 6th angel model, this one from the 18th century) We strolled along the top battlements and then the lower circular foundations, its amazing to think of how this monument has seen and has been used for so much, so many different things, from Popes and Prisioners to Emperors and tourists, its witnessed so many historical momuments, even more so than the Colosseum. 

Afterwards we browsed the antique shops and ate lunch at the Trevi Fountain, for once it wasnt completely pakced with tourists!We then headed to Spagna coming across an amazing antique and hand made cameo shop called "Marco's" ran now by Leonardo he had some fabulous antique and new pieces which he'd hand made in his workshop, unfortunately he was unable to use his lovely pink hawaiin conch shell in his pieces as it had become endangered. He also informed us of how the Japanese loved him, showing us an article about him and the shop in a Japanese magazine. his pieces were all half price for the January sales, id spotted a beautiful antique handpainted ivory cameo, originally 180euro, after some sweet talking I walked away with it for 70 euro. SUCCESS! the shop was also filled with lovely venetian glass pieces, next door was a custom tailors, definietly worth a look, just on from the left of the Spagna Metro exit.
We sadly got the metro and then the bus back to the hotel before getting our lift to the airport (a very small airport may I add) departing at 8.55pm Italy and arriving in Dublin at 10.30pm GMT. back to normlality and worse weather unfortunately!