Category Archives: Salerno

Life in Campania: Vacation Paradise, Daily Grind?

05 Thursday Oct 2017

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Hurricanes have flattened more than one vacation paradise recently. There are many left, and we are just finishing our stay in Salerno, Italy, adjacent to, if not in, vacation paradise (as in Amalfi, Sorrento, Capri).

Castello di Arecchi

Our current home ground, the province of Campania, was the breadbasket of ancient Rome, and occupied both long before and after the Romans. Pompeii is the most famous archaeological site here, and there are countless others. Not just the other Vesuvians (Herculaneum, Stabia, Oplontis, Bosco Reale), but Samnite and Lucanian sites, Etruscans, and Greeks, too. Later came the Lombards, the Angevins, Aragonese and the Hapsburgs building castles and fortresses. Archaeologically, this area is fabulous.

  • As a vacation paradise, there’s a lot to recommend this area.Gardens and orchards. Lemon, pomegranate, quince, apple trees are all dropping fruit all over the place–olive trees, too. The markets have an excellent variety of fruits and vegetables including multiple varieties of tomatoes and eggplants. You can be a vegetarian without even noticing. All that mozzarella de bufala, so little time!
  • Food costs are lower than anywhere else we have been in Europe.
  • Food festivals. We visited Cusano Mutri for its annual mushroom festival, the Sagra di Funghi. We bought porcini and chanterelles, ate mushroom and cheese sandwiches, had coffee in the tiny plaza at the top of the town. (There were no tour buses.)
  • Archaeology is everywhere. There are ruined towers every 500 yards or so along the coast. Some of these have been transformed into houses and hotels. Others are ruins ready to be visited. The Castello di Arecchi outside Salerno is one of the largest and best-restored.
  • In Florence, I saw a woman with a nice haircut and asked her whether she was local. When she said no, I asked where she was from and when she told me Salerno, I insisted she write down the name of her hairdresser for me.. 2 1/2 months later, when we were nearby, I visited her hairdresser, who was flattered that I made the effort to track her down. It was fun and I got a good haircut.
  • We had wonderful hosts, and met some lovely people, both Italians and other visitors.

No one really lives in Paradise, we just vacation there. Everyday life has its struggles whether you live in Bali or Boston, and how would we live with nothing to grouse about? We may only be here for a month, but a few things had to get done that vacationers ignore until the party’s over. That’s where Italy is a challenge.

  • Repairing anything is complicated, in Italy as in the US. My Samsung phone broke and I took it to a repair place that said the reset I needed could only be done at the other Samsung repair place. I went to the second repair place, left my phone to be fixed and came back the next day to find that they were still unable to fix it.
  • To get an appointment with an English-speaking eye doctor, I had to call her non-English-speaking receptionist. Fortunately, I can muddle along in basic Italian and receptionists can muddle along in English.

General grousing about Italy:

  • I have rarely been in such heavy traffic caused by…..nothing. On our first try we missed the ferry to Capri because no cars moved for 40 minutes. When I explained our problem at the ferry office, the agent was sympathetic. “Yes, terrible traffic.” “Do you know why?” I asked. Rolled eyes, a shrug. “No. It just happens.”
  • People drive badly. Most people drive too fast for the conditions, straddle lane lines, pass too close, tailgate, park haphazardly. If you plan to drive, be warned. There are a lot of cars, and too little space for them.
  • Traffic cameras send you a ticket three months after you’ve left town–we’ve only gotten one so far. Every person you speak to says they have gotten innumerable tickets. (Shrug. No one has any suggestions for avoiding them.)
  • Crowds are part of life. I feel crowded on the bus, the subway, walking down the street, shopping, and at the beach. There may be tiny hill towns begging for population, but Greater Naples is bursting at the seams. Eight story apartment buildings surround single story houses from the last century. It looks like the big buildings just shouldered their way in and squatted down.

Woman gardening beside motorcycle repair shop.

Some of my grousing can be turned on its head.

  • There doesn’t seem to be a lot of zoning concerns in Campania the way there is in Tuscany where preserving views of the landscape is a paramount civic value.  In the Naples region there is a patchwork of apartments, cultivated fields and orchards. You could call it lack of zoning, but I like seeing see lemon trees along the highway and eggplants beside the car repair.
  • History is everywhere. We saw city walls from five different time periods in a two block section of Salerno. You can walk around any ruined structure that isn’t marked Do Not Enter.

I wouldn’t change what I am doing for a different way of life. I appreciate learning what you need to know to actually live in a place, and every different locality has its own charms and aggravations. While I stretch my brain muscles with crosswords, I also stretch myself by living in different environments.

 

 

 

Two views of Naples

04 Wednesday Oct 2017

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We spent our last night in southern Italy at the Grand Hotel Vesuvio with a sea view room. Our hallway was lined with old prints of Mt. Vesuvius. Buildings facing the waterfront where the Vesuvio is located are all in good repair, recently painted, and punctuated by good restaurants.

 

In the afternoon we took a cab to Piazzale del Nilo to see what the Nile looks like as a statue (reclining old man holding a cornucopia leaning on a sphinx), and then went on to the street of the presepi, ceramic figurines and wooden villages that create scenes of the manger in Bethlehem accompanied by women, children, woodworkers, fishmongers, bakers, angels, animals, wise men and the holy family.

Later, we walked along the lungomare boardwalk to the Galleria Umberto I, a cross-shaped shopping arcade topped by a high arched glass roof. We stopped for a drink and then strolled back along the shore watching the many boats on the water, from sailfish to ferries. A delicious dinner and we retired to get ready for our flight to Palermo.

The morning buffet included traditional Neapolitan pastries, among the best I’ve tasted. Out the window of the breakfast room the bright sun glittered on the sea. We saw a four man scull starting practice on the Bay of Naples, where they could row for miles. As we stepped to the taxi the entire Bay of Naples stretched out in front of us, sun shining, a few tiny clouds hovering over Mt. Vesuvius. It was impressive and gorgeous. Our cabbie said he like to work from 6-11 am on Sundays while everyone was still asleep and the streets of Naples were peaceful, just a few walkers and cyclists on the lungomare. “That’s when you find Salvatore,” he finished, thumping his chest. He then roared us through the heart of the city to the airport, bobbing and weaving like every other driver, waving at two cars and shouting at one. Exhilarating, terrifying and scenic, we careened past a house with a dark wood balcony, now shabby but with old stained glass panels pale purple, white, and yellow. I wanted a photo, but we were already past. There were tall buildings with elegant balconies. A block farther on were  tall peeling, water-stained apartment buildings with laundry hanging over the windows of the neighbors on the floor below. Three old umbrella pines bordered a vacant lot. Palm trees slouched between tall buildings. Some streets were reminiscent of scenes from “My Brilliant Friend”, but we did not stop. Salvatore was gunning for the airport, the finale of our Naples visit.

Three days earlier we had a different kind of visit. Rather than a deluxe vacation visit to Naples, I had a doctor’s appointment. I’d made the appointment almost a month earlier when we were newly arrived in the area and I knew I needed a follow up eye scan. I called the day before to confirm that I was still on the books, then we made plans to take the train to Naples from our house in Salerno and walk to the doctor’s office on Via Umberto I. All went according to plan, we left home at 1:30 pm. We waited a few minutes for a local metro to the main train station, about a six minute ride. Then another 20 minutes waiting for the Naples train. The ride was uneventful and we arrived in Naples Centrale to the usual chaos of a major rail depot. The medical office was on Corso Umberto I, a straight shot down a busy street. It was a bit difficult to find the doctor’s office–it proved to be adjacent to an old palazzo under renovation wrapped in scaffolding and construction netting. The doctor’s building had a dim interior and no indication of what floor the office was on (third). I kept walking up the stairs until I saw the sign “Pascotto chirugia y ottica”, and the door was open on a bright waiting room. The young women inside were helpful and spoke some English. My appointment went smoothly and very rapidly. In the US, my eye appointments rarely take less than two hours. In Naples, I spent more time waiting for my receipt to be printed than anything else. I found that I needed an injection and since in Europe these are not done in doctors’ offices, I had to make an appointment for the next day at a day surgery center in a completely different part of Naples. We trudged back to the train station through the noise and bustle of rush hour, not tempted to stop in a cafe. Another 20 minute wait, then the train to Salerno, another wait and the metro to Pastena, and we were home by 7 pm. The impression I got of Naples by going in and out on the train, then walking from the central station was utterly different than my impression from the lungomare in front of the hotel. From Corso Umberto I, Naples is like any other big city, crowded, under construction, full of litter and people rushing from place to place talking on their phones. It seemed unexceptional. The workaday city was not nearly as glamorous as the Naples of the waterfront though it was interesting to see both. My experience shows you the difference between being on vacation and not. I couldn’t put off my doctor visit until I get home. It is no more entertaining to do necessary tasks in a lovely place than it is to do them “at home.”

San Mateo, Patron of Salerno

03 Tuesday Oct 2017

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The story of St. Matthew and the martyrs of Salerno is a triumph of faith over history.

St. Gaius statue made of silver.

Silver statue of St. Fortunato

Briefly, St. Matthew the Apostle died a martyr in Ethiopia, where he was buried. Three hundred years later, the story goes, his remains were transported by Breton merchants to Legion, a town located in the westernmost part of Brittany. His remains stayed in the city for forty years. For some reason, the Roman commander in the area, Gavinio, then carried the relics home to Velia, an ancient city in southern Campania, where they were buried in a church in Casal Velino. With the passing of centuries, the city fell into ruin and all memory was lost of the place where the sacred remains were buried. In AD 954, St. Matthew appeared in dream to Pelagia, a devoted woman who lived on the plain of Velia, giving her precise directions to the place of her tomb and asking her to spur his follower, the monk Athanasias, to search for his body. Athanasius discovered the remains of St. Matthew and moved them to a church in nearby Capaccio. He then went to the Norman Duke of Salerno, said he had recovered the apostle’s bones and these should be brought to Salerno and honored as holy relics. The transfer took place in 1081.

Despite all this moving around, many people believe the bones in the Salerno Cathedral are those of St. Matthew and turn out for the annual procession on Sept. 21. In the crypt of the cathedral there is also the log upon which Sts. Gaius, Ante and Fortunato were beheaded. They are called the Salernitane martyrs. In the annual procession, silver images of the martyrs and statues of St. Matthew are taken in procession around the city.

The silver images are very different from the painted plaster statues that I associate with religious processions.

We were impressed not only by the length of the route, but by the size of the crowds who came to see the procession. The streets were packed with people lining the route of the procession of saints. Some of them were probably there to see the fireworks at midnight after the procession, but the crowds were large and enthusiastic.

Riding the ferry along the Amalfi Coast to Capri

28 Thursday Sep 2017

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I’ve been lax on posting lately and will now catch up by posting a few pictures from some of the places we’ve enjoyed this month. Taking the ferry along the coast gave us a great look at Amalfi and Positano from the water. The ferry stops at both places on its way to Capri.

Amalfi

Marina Piccola, Capri

We had a glorious day in Capri. Now that it’s September, the weather was perfect. (Yes, there were a thousand people there. Welcome to Capri, a “top ten” sight in Italy. 4 million people a year visit this tiny island.)

 

 

 

We stopped for coffee when we first arrived on Capri and sat sipping while we looked out over the busy harbor at Marina Grande. Before we left, we stopped for a spritz at one of the cafes off the Piazzetta. Again, we watched the many tourists and general bustle. Having read a few restaurant reviews before going out there, we decided to have a picnic lunch.

People who have trouble walking up and down a lot of steps may not enjoy the Amalfi coast, but on Capri, there is a walk from the top of the funicular in the Piazzetta of Capri out to the Belvedere Tragara that doesn’t include a lot of steps. The view over the rocks “I Faraglione” is stunning and there are some patches of light blue water when the bottom is sandy that are straight out of the Blue Grotto. There are benches here and there so you can stop and savor the view and picnic.

We did not visit the Blue Grotto while on Capri. This wasn’t restraint on our part, it was closed. The entrance is only accessible at low tide with calm seas. Later, I heard people saying that the Blue Grotto was very crowded and there was a long wait. From what I’ve read the water is clear blue illuminated from below and objects immersed in the water look silvery or ghostly. It sounds like a magical place even with many other visitors.

Practicalities of visiting Capri

It takes a full day to visit Capri whether you start from Naples, Sorrento or Salerno. Our ferry left at 8:40 am and we returned to the landing about 6 pm. We took the ferry from Salerno, 1.5-2 hour trip depending on conditions, €26 per person plus fees. The funicular from the ferry landing at Marina Grande, Capri, to the town center was very crowded (€2 per person each way), but better than walking. There are also buses, just as crowded. All vehicles on Capri are mini-sized. High end shopping is a serious activity on Capri. Every designer you’ve ever heard of has a store there and there are quite a few fine jewelry and watch stores on the streets radiating out from the Piazzetta.

Boat trips around the island start at €18 per person in an open boat with about 25 people, to private charters at €250 and up per boat that can include a stop for swimming. All tours include a stop at the Blue Grotto if it is open. The Blue Grotto is €14 per person in a small rowboat.

There are walks available on Capri if you stay longer than one day and have good stair-climbing ability. The island has a few tiny coves where you can rent lounges and umbrellas and take a swim. Remember that when Italians say “beach” they don’t mean sand they mean sunbathing. If you stay longer than one day, you might visit the second town on Capri, Anacapri, a short bus ride from the ferry landing.

We returned on the ferry, enjoying one last view of Positano and Amalfi, like tidepools caught on the rocky coast.

Positano

 

What I love about Pompeii

15 Friday Sep 2017

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As an archaeologist, I was amazed, surprised, and delighted by Pompeii. Other sites may be bigger (Tenochtitlan, Mexico), have larger temples and pyramids (Moche, Peru), or more spectacular settings (Machu Picchu, Peru), but more is known and brings the city to life in  Pompeii than anywhere else.

There are lots of buildings, walls and streets. The owner is often known and many are marked .

Pompeii is so big there are addresses (e.g. Region VI, Insula 3). They are very helpful when you are trying to find a specific house, since some are open 9:30-1:30 pm. Others are open 1:30-7:00 pm.

Archaeologists know a huge amount about Pompeii from inscriptions, objects and documents. We stopped and chatted with an international team (French, Spanish, Italian) excavating in the Necropolis of Porta Nocera and they showed us their work. They have uncovered three individuals, one under the wall and two in the funerary structure, including a woman who was marked by the small tombstone on the right, above. They now know her name and that it was a family burial plot for some time before the tomb structure was added. A man was buried near the woman and they believe it may have been a couple, but he did not have a marker to tell us his name. The archaeologists dig very slowly, removing narrow layers. We also saw all the digital gear that is now standard in excavations.

The level of preservation is a real knockout. The Villa of the Mysteries is at one end of the park. All of the house but its roof was preserved and the walls are decorated with complex mythological scenes. The wall art is painting or fresco.

 

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There are more than forty houses that are named and visible, many with spectacular preserved wall painting like the Villa of the Mysteries above.

Three things I noticed in the elaborate houses–

The two lower panels are imitation marble.

People used a lot of painting to imitate decorative marble (R).

 

 

 

 

 

People often painted rooms very dark colors, black or dark red.

 

 

 

 

 

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People liked trompe l’oeil painting (making walls look three-dimensional). There were a lot of skilled painters.

The villas are not all of the story at Pompeii. People fled, taking jewelry or a sack of coins, if anything. Thus, businesses and homes were abandoned completely furnished, bakeries had loaves in the ovens, horses were in their stalls, grapes and pomegranates on the vine. Everything was covered with volcanic ash so rapidly that their form was preserved even after the physical remains burned up. Scientists have identified the trees and plants in the gardens from casts of their carbonized roots.The casts of family members who tried to hide from the explosion are among the most poignant features of the site.

Jonathan could have worked at the thermopolia–take out restaurants. Only the wealthiest people cooked their own food. Most people bought hot meals to go. He also liked the kitchens and the bakeries.

All food was farm to table back then. Each bakery had stones to grind grain to make flour, then they made and baked bread. Amphorae held oil, wine and even garum, the smelly fermented fish condiment that Romans loved. The artifact storage spaces hold hundreds of amphora, and countless others were removed from Pompeii over the years before the site was well protected.

I was impressed by the respect people at Pompeii had for their household gods. Most houses had a niche, a lararium, and these ranged from simple to glorious.

I knew that Pompeii would have great things to see. What I learned is that Pompeii has a lesson for great sites, it’s openly a work in progress. This has its good and bad sides. The good part is that as new buildings are restored and conserved, they are opened to the public, even when they are not yet on all maps and posters. We found this with the Taverna Hedones. Since I don’t read Latin, I don’t understand why the mosaic in its floor is a bear and the word “Have”.

You can spend two full days at Pompeii as we did and still not see all there is to see. It’s vast. You pass maintenance staff, people working on restoration at all levels, from measuring a pillar in a gated area to moving rock with mini-backhoes. There is storage of artifacts in some of the spaces along the side of the Forum. It’s not ideal artifact storage, but it shows some of the many amphora, casts, even a strongbox that used to be built into a Pompeiian house.

Open-air storage with a strongboxfrom a Pompeiian house.
Open-air storage

There isn’t room to hide anything backstage at Pompeii. Some areas are blocked with metal gates covered in images of the site. You have no idea how long it has been or will be like this. It all changes as it goes. If you are on a tour, your guide should know what’s available and you will barely notice streets and buildings that are blocked.

If you are on your own, and especially if you’ve done a bit of planning in order to see specific houses at Pompeii, you need to factor in buildings at Pompeii that are open at different times. Neighboring structures may be open at opposite times, requiring a visitor to pass the same spot twice at different hours in order to see both places. There are online lists of which houses are open and at what times and this can change at any time. It’s a tough place to keep together.

Sometimes the walls fall down.

In 2014, a chunk of temple wall collapsed after heavy rains and there was a lot of ranting in the press about whether Pompeii was mismanaged. Everyone knew it was underfunded, so there was a lot of finger-pointing.

Wall collapses at Pompeii after heavy rains

Today the funding situation seems to have improved and there is a master plan in the works (Grande Progetto Pompeii). Restoration is underway in several areas and there is general bustle. I like that. When we visited there were also interesting exhibits, one on Pompeii and the Greeks in the Grand Palestra and two smaller exhibits in the Antiquarium exhibit area near the gift shop. One exhibit was on looted items that have been recovered, including a section on fakes being sold as ancient artifacts from Pompeii. The second exhibit is on the House of the Golden Bracelet that is not presently open to visitors.

My personal gripes are small ones. There is only one cafe in the center of the city and it seemed like every time I wanted coffee we were at the other end of Pompeii. The other is that the gift shop isn’t very extensive, and not a single ball cap. I guess Italians don’t wear a lot of hats. I’ll end with a few more of my favorite images from Pompeii.

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Sorrento

10 Sunday Sep 2017

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Need I say anything?We ate lunch looking over the Bay of Naples, Vesuvius in the background, a six-masted cruise ship moored nearby and a ferry to Capri at the landing. Sorrento is charming for a stroll, shopping and lunch.

Houses dangle from the cliffs.
Italians don’t go to the beach, there isn’t any. You can still swim and sunbathe.

We had a lovely day. We did drive to Sorrento from Salerno, parking in the first garage we came to.

Cyclists who ride in the center.
Traffic.
Roads carved into the hillside.

Driving hazards include cyclists who ride in the center of the road, heavy traffic, and narrow roads carved into steep hillsides. it’s not a place where you can cruise. Walking is the solution. You will be offered free tastes of limoncello so many times in a day that walking might be mandatory. There is lemon-themed everything in Sorrento.

 

 

I had not seen majolica-covered domes on the top of churches before.

 

 

 

Recipe of the Day

Seafood is on the menu when in Sorrento, and all of Italy. Here’s Jonathan’s latest. It was delicious.

Neopolitan Dish of the Day: Fish in Crazy Water

Good to know about Sorrento

Trains and buses serve Sorrento, and distances are not great. There are great walks outside of town and out onto the tip of the Sorrento Peninsula. Everything is steep.

That said, the ads that suggest you base your visit to Pompeii etc. in Sorrento are insane as far as I can see. You would be in traffic every day for every trip in and out of town. If you were to visit Sorrento, Amalfi and their neighbors with Capri and Ischia thrown in, and nowhere else, you could stick to ferries and avoid traffic, but anything toward Naples means traffic. Ferry rates are €6-20 each way depending on where you are going. If you’re not interested in archaeology, it could work, though this is not for us.

We found local parking for €2 per hour next to a supermarket and intended to do some shopping on the way home (70 minutes of complimentary parking, too). Then we discovered that the grocery store is closed from 12:30 to 5 pm. This is a holiday town.

After Ferragosto

08 Friday Sep 2017

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Ferragosto is the annual down time for all of Italy. During the two weeks from mid-August until the first of September almost everyone takes a holiday, and every desirable hostelry in the country is jammed to the doors. That’s why we left for Ireland. We returned to Italy when order was restored on Sept. 1. Our first trips were to the beach and a major archaeological site, Paestum.

At the beach, the shift was dramatic. There were only two or three umbrellas in use at beachfront businesses with 40-60 umbrellas. Staff members were hosing off equipment, taking down cabanas and stacking the parts for storage. We had a lovely afternoon enjoying the sun and the breeze. No babes in bikinis, just other retirees and a few families with preschoolers.

The next day we tackled a real challenge, Paestum. This huge archaeological site was home to Greeks, Lucanians (ancient Italians), Romans, Lombards, pretty much everyone who passed through. The Greek temples are the best preserved portion of the site, though the museum holds the remains of painted tombs and artifacts from later periods. We chatted briefly with one of the archaeologists working at Paestum this year and we watched a staff member running ground penetrating radar across a section of grassy field that is probably full of ancient houses.

 

There is also a very large amphitheater and other round buildings that were used for meetings of different sized groups.

Excavations at Paestum recovered hundreds of painted tombs, four walls and sometimes a ceiling panel (the most famous, the Diver, was a ceiling panel.)

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There were not many visitors, and since Paestum is so large, we passed very few people as we walked around. There may have been more lizards than tourists. We could tell that the high season is over. One tour bus was parked in the lot beside a scattering of cars.  Everyone else was back at work.

Salerno, Italy

07 Thursday Sep 2017

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We now have a very comfortable apartment in Salerno, Italy, just south of the Sorrento Peninsula. From the long avenue along the harbor you can see the entire Amalfi Coast.Our house is a former worker’s cottage, now spruced up. The giant bread oven is now our bathroom.

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Tucked in here an there in Salerno are small hexagonal buildings. One is on the corner of our patio, another is near the beach. It turns out these were water pumps worked by donkeys. Looks like it’s been a while since they were in use.More about Salerno as we see it!