Herculaneum

13 July

I woke early and had already decided that today was the day I would go to Herculaneum.  I had been told that it was better and more interesting than Pompeii and less crowded.  So I skipped out of the hotel before breakfast with a view to get down to the train station, to get to Herculaneum early and to beat any crowds.  

Having got my ticket to Ercolano, the local station for Herculaneum, I then could not find the platform for the train service.  The reason? It turned out, once I had found somebody to ask, that there were no trains and I was on a bus.  So off to the bus terminal to face the next challenge; with one massive long bus shelter, no bays at all and no boards giving information, how to know which bus to get on?  By chance the first person I asked happened to be the driver for the bus I needed so I hopped on board and awaited the departure.

Herculano, the nearby town where the ruins of Herculaneum were first discovered in the mid 1700s before Pompeii but once Pompeii was discovered attention was diverted there as it was far easier to excavate.  It is only a twenty minute bus ride from Naples. I was dropped off at the local station, but as it turned out a different station from the one I expected and had read about.  So courtesy of Google maps (I am so pleased I bought that 3G card...) I set about trying to find the ruins.  

Now you might think that something as famous and fundamental to the tourist trade of the local town (which was like Naples in its run down appearance and general scruffiness) would be well signposted. Well, you would be wrong.  I headed off along the street that headed up the hill that is the side of Vesuvius and the state of the town only seemed to get worse.  Roads dug up, people sitting around on the streets and lots of small market traders set up and plying their rather tatty goods to, well, nobody.  I popped into a shop to buy some water and ask the way and ended up having a chat with the shopkeeper about why I was in Italy and the best places to go to in Naples and around and also to be told that I had passed the back entrance to the archaeological site a few hundred yards back (no signs though and it turned out to have been locked anyway).  But I was also advised that I should visit the Herculaneum virtual museum just around the corner before visiting the site. This fairly lengthy chat was not only informative but it impressed upon me just how much Italian I must have learned in the previous couple of weeks as I found it straightforward.  I took the shopkeeper’s advice on the virtual museum and it turned out to be a great little place (although I had to ask the way a couple of times and the only signpost I saw for this was right by the entrance...).  An interesting computer generated virtual tour of some of the buildings in the geological site.  

Next stop Herculaneum which was interesting and kept me occupied for two or three hours.  The trouble with being able to see everything on the internet or on the television nowadays is that the impact of something truly impressive is diminished.  As I walked around the streets of Herculaneum, looking at the remnants of painting on the walls and the remains of personal items left behind, I kept having to remind myself that the whole place had been uncovered from under 40 feet of volcanic 'tuft' and to recall some of the more impressive paintings that had been found here but were now in the Naples Archaeological museum.  It was otherwise too easy to simply wander round the remains of the streets and houses and think...'yeh, and?'

I left Herculaneum and walked back down to the town centre where I had been dropped off.  My next problem was to find out how and where to get a bus ticket but, upon asking in a bar, I found that they could not only sell me a ticket but - while I was waiting for the bus - a couple of beers and a Panini too.

I got home in the late afternoon and determined that I would tonight go and see Naples in the evening.  But again, after a shower and finishing off the cheese and bread I had because I was a bit peckish I ended up once again lazing the night away with the strains of British radio over the Internet.....