2019.April 13-14: Herculaneum (Gulf of Naples, part 1)

20 years ago, I missed out on our Latin Class trip to Italy (Rome! Pompeii! Herculaneum! Probably other stuff I since forgot), and finally got to make up for it. Also, given it has been 20 years, apparently a lot of excavation work has happened in between, so maybe it is even better in many ways now that it would have been then.

[For those not in the know, I had three years of Latin in High School and a fourth in college. For some reason, Latin clubs are really popular in Texas and get-togethers involving everything from written exams in various areas to quiz-show style teams ("certamen" -- i was the mythology expert) as well as how-tos (wear a toga) or theater pieces (in English, with classic themes)]

First stop: Portici/Herculaneum (Present day: Ercolano)

TL;DR if you have to choose one of the two (Pompeii or Herculaneum), choose Herculaneum. Quality over quantity (as our guide said).

Worried somewhat about the notorious crime in Naples, we planned the trip to fly in/out of there and not actually spend any time in the city. So we stayed in Portici. The place we were staying suggested we could pay 30 Euros (and save an hour time) and be picked up from the airport.  The view from the hotel room was nice, and the recommended restaurant for dinner was quite good.

Sadly, we seemed to be located across from (but 3 (very tall) floors up) a night club with incredibly high quality speakers which blasted music from around midnight/1am until 4 or 5am and we slept terribly.

The weather prediction the next day was rain, so we had cancelled our pre-booked tour for the afternoon. The morning dawned reasonably clear, so we headed to the site and there were people standing by the line, advertising tours in various languages. We expressed interest in English, and in the end we were 10 people.

Pompeii and Herculaneum - what happened? In 79 AD (we are pretty sure now it was October, not August), Vesuvius erupted in a rather catastrophic way, burying Pompeii and Herculaneum (and some of the other area neighboring current-day Naples). Pliny the Elder told his son (Pliny the Younger) to stay behind while he checked it out, and our account of the whole thing comes from the younger Pliny's writings,   including some notes salvaged from his father's trip.

Pliny the younger was in Micenum (left finger of land). Pompeii is the lower right of this picture, and Herculaneum (Ercolano) is halfway between Naples and Pompeii on the coast:

Why has everyone heard of Pompeii?

• It was excavated first, and much longer, and 
• (as a result) a lot of the good stuff was already taken away during the reign of the Bourbon King(s). 
• It is also much bigger.  

It was a town of middle class, new upper class, and tons of workers.
Herculaneum was a resort town with nice weather.

first view of Herculaneum site

Back to that first point -- Pompeii was covered in incredibly hot ash, effectively vaporizing the inhabitants. Herculaneum was spared a few days (and some of the temperature) due to winds pushing things over to Pompeii. So Herculaneum has actual remains of peoples' bones, which was useful for figuring out interesting stuff like -- that the lead in the pipes was not being absorbed into their bodies (theory being the calcium lined the pipes so quickly, it formed a protective layer)).

Oh, right! Pompeii has stepping stones. Herculaneum does not because they had actual sewage systems/pipes. They also all could afford pipes bringing water from the fountains into their fancy houses.

There is also a theory that it was not the gasses that killed the people of Herculaneum, but their blood boiling in their veins. Grim. This analysis was done using what we have of their bones.

Herculaneum was covered more aggressively with lava, Pompeii was ash and a little lava, which makes Herculaneum much much harder to excavate, but what is excavated is well preserved. E.g. the second floors of some buildings, and even some wood.

Example: shutters and doors of still-extant wood:

You can see how much material was dropped in the eruption, because we were standing on it, looking down. I think 25 meters?  Here, Vesuvius is behind the clouds in the upper left.

what used to be the edge of Herculaneum, facing the sea

Back to the bones, and the timing of the eruptions. People in Pompeii died here, there, everywhere. People in Herculaneum died at the sea, having all fled to the docks hoping the escape by ship. These are where the ships were, and they found bones (replicas are there now (that is what everyone is looking at), the real ones elsewhere):

Down by the bones is a swamp with a cacophany of frogs.

Some insights into Roman construction and life

1. Cheap housing for workers 

Our guide explained some interesting things about construction (better preservation = more information), including that while the fancy villas were stone, the occasional building in Herculaneum which was built to house workers was built of much less quality materials, basically like "half-timbered homes" (Fachwerkhaeuser) in Germany, with wood frames and kind of mixed materials between as cheap insulation.

I thought this was cool, as it to me it suggests that it is not so much that people forgot architecture during the dark ages, but only remembered how to build stuff for the lower classes (which maybe involved fewer people/was built faster).

Example:

workers apartments in Herculaneum

2. Pyramidal shaped building blocks , Marble-clad columns

There had been an earthquake in 62 AD which destroyed a fair amount of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and astonishingly, people came up with some interesting ways to deal with future earthquakes. The stones used were sort of tetrahedrons, on their sides, and concrete was poured between (Reminder: Romans invented concrete). Left picture, with our guide explaining the blocks.
I enjoyed that the columns (unlike in Greece) are brick and mortar, covered with marble (right):

3. "Pompeii red" -- maybe sometimes just oxidized ochre

There is a theory that the infamous "pompeii red" is the result of the oxidization of yellow paint (in at least some cases). You can see here the yellow paint which sort of morphs to red about a meter off the ground (warm air rises, makes sense original color might stay close to the ground).

5. Pricing via color of the amphora (pretty clever)

6. Penises as good luck symbols (here in the baths):

 Some beautiful things still there

This was a temple dedicated to the cult of Augustus (see: emperor worship) which we know because there is a plaque on the wall stating as much. It is a good example of the really well-preserved frescos which are still on the walls (in Pompeii, you often need to go to the museum in Naples (former residence of the Bourbon Kings, who ran off with the stuff 3 centuries ago)). Note: women were painted white, dudes painted brown. Brown dude here is Hercules.

This is another nice example of the kinds of mosaics/art still preserved on-site in Herculaneum:

Lots of floor mosaics. Here is an entryway. You can see the compluvium (the buildings were open, letting light, air and water in, which collected in a small pool that overflowed into a reservoir under the floor):

To the next post: Vietri Sul Mare, where we stayed during our week of hikes along the Amalfi Coast.

2018 Sep Finland: hike up Oejberget, old Vaasa, finishing up

2018 Sep 05 Hike around Öjberget 

Getting to Öjberget required a car and then a little walk, which made it clear this was one of the few hill-like areas in the region. The third/rightmost picture is some kind of ski mascot (found at the base of the skiing hill, around which the nature trail wanders.


View up the hill:


The hiking scenery was entirely different from Svedjehamn. Included wild blueberries and lingonberries (left picture).




The whole place was pure granite, mostly one giant boulder-seeming formation. Regular signage mentioned how inhospitable the granite is, and it becoming forest started with lichen, then moss, and these two built up some dirt-like substance that eventually brush and trees could take root in. Note: fuzzy looking stuff (left picture) was not fuzzy.


Interesting rock formations included the "Giant's Cauldron", formed as ice receded but was still moving stones around inside other stones, forming a hollow.



The signage by the following boulder explained that during the stone age,  this part of the hill was at water level, so it was an island with a boulder outcropping. Seal-hunting was clearly what people were up to there in the area, with stone-age tools found under the rock where people must have sheltered from the weather/storm/angry seals?.


This next thing, a field of stones, was also created by retreating ice effects/formerly being under the ocean. Called a/the devil's garden, I enjoy the supposition that the Devil would gather up rocks to make more rocks, and that was what he was interested in harvesting.

View from the top of the ski hill, down to the start of the hike. This from atop a tower like thing that seemed to be somehow used in winter as well, maybe as the start of some kind of ski-jumping part of the hill.


In the tower was a map explaining how the area looked over time. You can notice the meteorite crater, and how Öjberget started as a neighboring island and became a nearby hill as time and land uplift went on.


View of the crater from the tower:

Bike rides: old Vaasa and some of the open air museum

During the next few days, we took some bike rides, including swinging by "old Vaasa" on the way home. The prior port/harbor is now solidly on land, which is part of why Vaasa moved. The rest being that Vaasa had burnt down a few times, and after 1852 they gave up and tried to build in a way to minimize future fire danger, with very broad streets and alleyways forcing spaced between the (even now) largely wooden buildings. As a result, old Vaasa ruins is mainly the mostly-stone church:


The signage on the church is pretty funny.  It talks about the various expansions, including one where they made something larger, and the local peasants demanded they remove the support pillars to "make it more airy", and it promptly collapsed. They tried to fight having to pay for the repairs, to no avail.

The area around the Open Air Museum (aka a small swedish settlement that didn't want their old farmhouse buildings anymore, so they moved them and made them a museum) was very pretty, along the shore.



Given it was post-tourist-season for the open air museum, one could walk around it but not actually get inside of any of the buildings, which seemed to be the most interesting part. Enjoy an odd windmill:



Also saw on our bike ride a very very green house, next to a totally standard red house.

Parting thoughts on Finland

I think Finnish is a language where one would have to live there to learn it, and it would always be quite a challenge. It is nice that this region has Swedish as a very common language. 

Temperatures were, as highs, between 17 and 20C. Definitely a great range for outdoor activity, and when on/by the water, it felt quite toasty.  It was supposed to rain one day, but didn't (still spent the day checking out outlets and sports stores to see if any brand there fit well/better than what I could get in Germany for a softshell or allweather shoes).  

Sauna every day, especially with the option for somewhat brisk ocean water to cool off, was really lovely and relaxing. I may join a gym here just for sauna access. Well, and, you know, to exercise a little.

Side-note: public and private toilets alike seemed generally stocked with what I would call a "Finnish bidet". Which clearly also doubles as a tool to wash your hair in the sink or maybe even hose off your feet if you need (all bathrooms and rooms with water-using appliances have drains in the floor and tile or linoleum floors).

Fly home: 

If you zoom in, to the right of the airplane tail, is a totally normal house, just looking out onto the runway.


Last views of Vaasa from the air:


Til next trip (or, you know, I write some of the backlog of travel blogs I keep intending to write ;) ).

pre flight "chilling" in rocking chairs at airport

2018 Sep 02-04 Vaasa and a Meteorite Crater (Soederfjaerden)

Saturday evening, arrived and had time to buy groceries and (of course) have a sauna.

If you didn't know, Finland loves licorice (also the ammonium-choride-salty kind, Salmiak). Turns out, dates dusted in licorice taste and have the mouth-feel of, well, soft licorice.

Finland prides itself on design, one rather big porcelain producer is "Arabia", which you can find everywhere, including the grocery store. (Above right)

There was a chips and tex mex aisle.

Sunday 02 Sep 2018 the local highest point

The first full day necessitated a walk up the only hill in the area, for a good view of the surrounding archipelago.

The path up, full of birch trees (reminds me of the Northeast US a bit, really striking, especially with the flowers still blooming), and another guest on the trail:



The view from the top of the archipelago (including the prevalent various sorts of pine trees around):




Further exploring yielded a delightfully progressive sign (imo)

Also saw this Pizza place, "Dallas Pizza Palazzo", which has a sort of oddly proportioned white statue of liberty, and a matching white limo for guests? I hear the pizza is not that great. The sign (left) is a good example of local signage. This is the Swedish-speaking region of Finland, and often signs are first in Swedish, and second in Finnish (other way around in Helsinki, e.g.)
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Monday 03 Sep 2018 A Boat ride and Cranes in a Meteorite crater

The day involved some noodling around on a smallish boat (one can also effectively row it, which I am not a natural at).

500 000 years ago, a crater was made in this region by a giant meteorite impact. 

Since the retreat of the glaciers (post ice age), which were 3km thick, Finland has been slowly lifting up. So given the time that has passed, the crater went from a nice deep region of water to something more swampy and around 1920 (?) the locals decided it made more sense to pump the water out (and keep pumping it) to free up the land for farming:


Cranes love this (although farmers do not love the cranes) and in the summer, they nom on whatever cranes eat and then fly out to the islands at night.

Some video of the cranes flying, complete with noises.

Zoom-less picture of some of the cranes flying away:

(start of) Tuesday 04 Sep 2018

In the morning, cycled into town and back.

Vaasa has a university and about 60 000 inhabitants. The statue of the woman centaur is in front of a university building (former factory building). The dude on the right is in the main town square. I like the yellow building behind him.