Day 4--John Live at Pompeii

A day of strange mixed emotions—elation, frustration, fascination, and a few moments of despair.

I left the hotel before dawn. Roosters were crowing nearby. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a rooster crow at dawn, let alone three of them at the same time.
The air was chilly but I deliberately did not bring along my jacket, because I knew (assumed?) that it would get warmer by mid-morning, and I didn’t want to drag a heavy jacket around the excavation with me. So I wore two shirts instead. The temperature was maybe in the upper 40s. And then I heard thunder. And lightning flashed over the Tyrhennian Sea.
I grabbed a pastry for breakfast at the local coffee shop but did not have high expectations. It turned out to be delicious. Then the bus came and I was off.
I still chuckle to myself that there was even one moment when I considered driving myself to Pompeii along those roads. I have moments of delusion like that.
The rain was intermittent on the way but very heavy at times. In fact, at one point, it started to hail. Now the last night I was in Paris with Margaret it hailed, too. So this is my second hail storm in Europe. "I am John, Bringer of Hail! Bow down before me!!"
Anyway the trip to Pompeii was long and at one point reminded me of one of those dreams where I’m trying to get someplace but I keep going around in circles. The bus driver seemed to be stopping at every bus stop in modern Pompeii. But finally I arrived at the excavation—and everything was closed. A moment of panic. The website said Open Daily, but I know now not to presume anything when traveling overseas. In front of the ticket window lounged what looked to be two large stray dogs. As I stood at the ticket window trying to figure out if they would be open or not, one of the dogs put his paws up on my chest. He must have been an English-speaking Italian dog, because I very loudly said, “Down!” and he got down off me. Then he/she and the other dog started to nip and growl at each other. With the place empty, the ruins of Pompeii in the background, and the dogs growling at each other, this was starting to feel like the opening to The Exorcist.
I wandered around till I found some men over at the entry gate. Sure enough I was an hour early. So I wandered over to the Circumvesuviana railway station, had a donut and hot chocolate, and waited.
These places are never how you imagine them to be. I thought the excavation would be somewhat on its own, not really in the midst of modernity, which is also how I imagined the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris before I saw it in person. The pictures lie. Pompeii is in downtown Pompeii. But once inside the new disappears.
When I looked at the map and the list of specific points of interest, I had a moment of panic. It was too much! I wouldn't know where to start! I didn’t want to go with a tour group, or follow a mechanized audio guide, but I wondered, would I have enough time? It was like looking for a restaurant in Paris—too many choices. Remember—Pompeii isn’t an excavated Roman site. It is an entire Roman town. So I started walking.
There were specific structures that I knew I wanted to see—the Villa of the Mysteries, the House of the Vetii, the amphitheater. I followed the map as best I could. By now it was after nine and it had stopped raining, but it was still chilly, overcast, and the wind was making it very hard to use the map.
I eventually made it to the amphitheater. By now the sun was out and it was warmer. The amphitheater is where they shot Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii. My father bought the videodisc (remember those?) for me when I was in 9th grade, and it was my first actual exposure to the ancient city—exactly 25 years ago. Full circle.
I enter into the amphitheater. By now I’m noticing several more stray dogs throughout the excavation. They looked well fed. Does the staff feed them? They were also well-behaved with the visitors. In fact, for the most part, they completely ignored us. All 75,000 of us. You see, I thought (assumed?) that it being a weekday, cold and cloudy, and off-season, that there wouldn’t be that many people touring the site, apart from school groups. Think again, Johnson. Huge, swarming tour groups of every nationality—German, French, Asian, Brit, American, Scandinavian, moving slowly like great beasts. They dared to impede the Bringer of Hail!
Anyway, back to the amphitheater. I set up to take a panoramic picture of the place when the camera makes a noise. I look at the back—it says “Turn off power and turn on again.” The shutters hadn’t opened all the way. Now this is Margaret’s camera on loan to me, and she told me before I left that one of the shutters doesn’t always close immediately after you turn it off--you have to wait a few seconds, and then it shuts. So it’s been doing that the whole trip and I’ve gotten used to it, but now the shutters won’t open. A moment of panic. I’m trying not to make my terror seem too obvious to the assloads of tourists around me. I turn it on and off several times until the shutters come all the way open. I take a few more shots, hoping it’s a fluke. But it does it again. So I repeat the procedure. I soon realize that the only way the shutters will come all the way open is if I press down hard on the power button. This works for a while, until I go to turn it off again (so I don’t waste the batteries) and I realize the power button has stuck and the lens won’t retract. I guess I pressed too hard. I futz around with the button, hoping to unstick it, and the camera turns itself off, ostensibly for good.
Now I’m ready to start weeping like a five-year-old. For one thing, I realize I now have to buy Margaret a new camera, and second, I’m in danger of losing the ability of documenting the remainder of my trip--let alone the rest of Pompeii, which I may never return to--unless I can buy a new camera in Amalfi. Yes, I know there are worse things that could have happened on the trip: lost wallet, lost passport, lost luggage, lost airplane engine. But . . . shit! I mean, @#%*!! Everyone around me was taking pictures. I hated them all. A couple of times I even deliberately walked in front of something to spoil one of their shots. Despondency had turned me into an asshole.
I sat down in the sanctuary of the House of the Faun and pondered my situation. I recalled that before I went to Iceland, I resolved not to take a camera, not to be a tourist, but more like—a witness, I suppose. Then I wound up buying some disposable cameras in Reykjavik and took some truly horrendous pictures. But now I thought back to that resolution. I looked at the other tourists and realized that like them, I had been photographing things, but not really looking at them. So for the remainder of the day I walked at a more measured pace, and lingered over things longer. This helped me to resolve my dilemma emotionally, and I was better able to enjoy the experience on a deeper, more meaningful level. Perhaps even spiritually. If I can rescue the pictures from the camera’s memory stick that I did manage to take, I’ll upload them later. For now though, you’ll have to type Pompeii into Google Images.
They actually have a modern cafe with gift shop built in the middle of the excavation, as if it were part of the town. For lunch I had a chilled seafood salad and vanilla gelato.
I encountered another frustration when I discovered that several houses, including the House of the Vetii, were closed for renovation. But at least the whorehouse was open! Perhaps I should explain—it’s called Lupanare (Lupa in Latin means prostitute). It’s a small establishment, well off the main thoroughfares (we're still inside the excavation site, mind you). As expected, the aforementioned assload of giggling tourists was cramming into it. It probably hadn’t seen that much traffic in all the years it was actually open for business. There were some cute softcore frescoes on the walls (the hardcore stuff is in a secret room in the Naples Museum). I would have loved to have taken some pictures for you all, but, oh well . . .
An unpleasant footnote—the guidebook says that because the women had no legal standing, the revenues all went to the manager of the brothel. So it really was a house of sexual slavery.
From there I went on to more edifying places, most importantly the Villa of the Mysteries. Some of the areas were roped off but one could still enjoy the rich colors and bizarre pagan narratives. I lingered over the frescoes and looked at them, while others took pictures.

The weather had held out most of the day, but as I was leaving it started to cloud up again and cool down. At the bus stop I became acquainted with a family of Brits who rode the same bus with me that morning. They’re staying in Ravello. While we waited for the bus to arrive ( it took an hour for it to show up), the thunderstorms moved in again.
When I got back to Amalfi I had supper at Da Meme’s again. This time I had grilled swordfish. It was buonissimo, one of the best meals I’ve had here so far.
I spoke with Ferdinanda and she made some suggestions about my camera situation, even going so far as to offer her own camera for me to use on Saturday and Sunday (before you think that’s really trusting of her, remember—I had to give the hotel my credit card number when I made the reservation). We agreed that the best thing for me to do tomorrow is to go to a photo shop in Amalfi with the memory stick and try and rescue the Pompeii pictures!
To Be Continued . . . .

Ciao!
John