Pat and Paul go travelling

And so we travel back again

2011-11-30T16:55:00.000Z

After a night at a camp site adjacent to the airport (and dinner with our Australian family), we drop the van off at the airport and check-in for the long flight home.

Hobart is such a small airport that check-in is easy and quick and it has ample seating, cafes and everything to make travel simple.

All planes park very close to the terminal and ours stops just outside of the terminal gate.

We are not coming back exactly the same route as we came out because for reasons only known to Qantas we have to come back via Sydney where we have a five hour layover – should we spend it at the airport getting bored or doing something more useful? The last time I had a five hour layover in Sydney I was travelling on my own and managed to fit in the Sydney Harbour Bridge climb. However a more sedate programme is planned for this layover.

Getting to and from the airport to the city is easy because there are trains every 10 minutes and the journey takes only 18 minutes. So we invest $30 each on a return ticket and go into the city to Circular Quay Station which is the closest station to the Opera House and The Bridge.

As the train pulls into Circular Quay Station, we are greeted by a good view of the Bridge.

The Sydney Harbour skyline is one of the great views of the City. The Jacaranda

Trees around the harbour are in bloom, and we have time to grab a quick lunch

and two photographs just to prove

we were there before we take the train back to the airport where our A380 is loading.

This time when we transit Singapore, we have sufficient time for a shower at The Rain Forest Lounge. It really is a most efficient system and you can just turn up without booking. Qantas park around Gate C23/C25 at Singapore Terminal 1 and the showers are about 5 minutes away near Gate 1 (not as far away as the impression the gate numbering might give). You pay around $9 Singapore dollars return for a towel and access to the unisex shower area.

The showers are not the height of luxury but

the water is hot and soap / shampoo / combs are provided and they note your flight number and monitor its gate to ensure you get back on time. We managed to speed through the whole thing in about 25 minutes only to find our flight was delayed by 45 minutes due to congestion over Afghanistan.

The UK on a dark cold December morning is not over welcoming but it is nice to be back, even if we do come back on a day when most of the public sector is on strike over changes to their pension scheme (a scheme which as a grateful public sector pensioner I can say is extremely good but unaffordable). As we left Sydney, we were given a letter by Qantas warning us of the possibility of long delays going through Immigration at Heathrow and the press were talking about 12 hour waits. In the event it took only 34 minutes from landing to leaving Terminal 3.

And so, about 10½ days after we left our house and 34 hours after we left Hobart, we are back again having travelled almost to the other side of the world just to go to a concert – something which would have been impossible not too many years ago and probably still is quite a ridiculous idea! It was however, absolutely worth it.

The temperature and climate change takes some getting used to however. In Sydney the calendar was heading toward the longest day, the temperature was 27c and there was 15 hours of daylight, in the UK the calendar is heading towards the shortest day, it is 7c and there are only 8 hours of daylight.

Comparisons of Maui with others

We have now hired vans from three different companies and can make a limited comparison of the companies and their vans. The best company we have hired from is Wilderness in New Zealand. They were very good to deal with before the trip and internally the van seemed to be designed by someone who had actually been on the road and knew what would make life easier when living in a van. In addition, neither the mechanical nor the camping sides of the van had anything wrong with them when we picked the van up.

The van we hired from Apollo in Australia was a bit old but worked perfectly well mechanically provided you let it wake up gently in the morning (i.e. did not drive hard until the engine had got warm). Its fault as a campervan was that the roof leaked (and they obviously had known about it because attempts had been made to fix it) and the air conditioner dripped water into one of the cupboards.

The Maui van worked very well as a van and internally, whilst perfectly functional, it was not as well designed or equipped as that of Wilderness (essentially the same product). The big problem with our Maui was that it had been poorly maintained from a camping perspective – we found too many faults when we were out on the road. Whilst we developed a work around for most of them, one of them was problematic (the grey dump tank valve was broken). These faults should not have been present in a van sent out on the road and because we only had a short rental, it was impossible to get them repaired without sacrificing a significant amount of our holiday time. Would I hire from Maui again? – maybe if the price was right but not from Hobart.

A Postscript

There will be a slight pause now before the next set of blog entries. Unfortunately we have had to cancel plans for going to India sometime in February and probably also a long camping trip to the USA next summer because I am about to commence treatment for Early Stage Localised Prostate Cancer. It was detected simply because (due to my age) I asked for a PSA test even though I had no symptoms of Prostate Cancer. My chances of a near 100% cure are pretty good and I am hoping for an operation in January.

We are planning to get back to travelling sometime around mid 2012 with an easy and restful trip to the Greek Islands perhaps, then maybe some autumnal diving and in the winter, perhaps a longer trip up the coast of Norway to above the Arctic Circle to see the Northern Lights again and then also perhaps India. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

“Men - Go and get your PSA checked - it may save your life. It saved mine”.

The East Coast of Tasmania

2011-11-28T17:15:00.000Z

Freycinet National Park

On our penultimate day in Tasmania, we are going to go for a short walk in the Freycinet National Park up to a lookout overlooking Wine Glass Bay between Mount Amos and Mount Mayson.

The park runs some distance down the coast and is well organised. Users have to pay a day fee ($24 2011) or a larger fee for a longer period.

There are three main walks (with variations): a walk uphill to the Wineglass Bay Lookout plus optionally down to the bay and back; or the 5 hour day walk around the Hazards Circuit; or the 3 day walk around the

peninsular. We (unfortunately) only have time for the shortest walk.You are encouraged to

register your intent at a shelter at the start and then set off on a well signposted walk. The timings given are reasonably accurate although I think assume a slower pace of walking than we are used to, perhaps more suited to those we see on the route wearing thongs (aka flip flops UK).

This particular walk has been well designed to fit into the landscape with boulders left where they fell presumably some millennia ago. If this were a 3-D photo, you would see that this boulder overhangs this walker in a somewhat gravity defying way.

Moeraki style boulders are on the track side

although some look like they are from the Henry Moore Centre at Perry Green.

As you climb the hill you get great views back over Coles Bay,

and of the forest running up the hill side which has just started to come out of Winter and heading into Spring.

There are numerous examples of one of our favourite Australian trees – the Paper Bark Tree.

There is a arty chair to rest on (unfortunately near the top rather than mid way)

and eventually you get to the lookout over Wine Glass Bay. No one knows why it is called that and various theories abound related to blood spilt during whale hunting or its shape.

and a the lookout are two walkers there looking rather pleased with themselves.

We are resolved that the next time we come to Tasmania, we are going to schedule in a much longer period here and do all of the walks including the three day if possible.

Coles Bay to Hobart

The road back to Hobart, follows in the main

the coast and due to the geography of the coast line, for the first 70 kms or so, Freycinet National Park is on the other side of the bay

and there are a number of nice places like Spikey Beach which make a fine stopping place for lunch.

The North Coast of Tasmania

2011-11-27T04:19:00.000Z

Stanley to Kelso

Stanley is famous because of the 154 metre

rock known as “The Nut “ which is the stump of an old volcano and also the picturesque houses in the old town around the base of The Nut. The Nut (then named Circular Head) was first seen by western explorers in 1798 when a voyage around Tasmania was made to prove that it was an island and not attached to the mainland.

The Van Diemen’s Land Company established a settlement here in 1826 and the original store the built a few years later still exists.

It also has a clean and sandy beach which should be large enough for the most

demanding of sand castles. Despite a red sunset last night which

supposedly foretells of great weather to come, today is one of those days when it rains non-stop (11 mm of rain, it may not sound a lot but it is) and flooding becomes an

appropriate descriptor for the day. Hence we head for Launceston along the coast because it has a museum – always a useful way to be dry but not confined to the van.

Our view of Launceston is that it has little to recommend it but the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (aka QVMAG) is an enthusiastic hive of activity with something for everybody between its town centre and outskirts building. Again, we are lucky in that a chance visit somewhere because of the weather takes us to a wonderful exhibition

entitled “Of Love and War”.

Sali Herman (1898-1993), Back Home, painted in Sydney, 1946

The museum, describes the exhibition as “Love touches us all. During times of conflict it has played and continues to play, an important role in the lives of our servicemen and women, the sweethearts and lovers they left behind or those they met while serving. The Australian War Memorial's exhibition looks at the impact of war on these relationships and the ways in which Australian incorporated affairs of the heart into their wartime lives.”

The exhibition comprises memorabilia related to relationships from a number of wars - photographs. letters, personal accounts etc. Some of these are poignant, some tragic, some happy etc.

Some show the insecurities of wartime romance. The text in this letter starts:

“My dearest darling: Hello Iva 7 months today since we were joined and 3 months today since I came away and left you alone. It is not a happy life my dear, I cannot be happy without you. Iva I will return to you - just as soon as I possibly can and that will be wonderful just the thoughts of what returning to you means is wonderful. You have given me a lot darling and I cannot think how I should feel if I was to lose you or if someone else should partly replace me………….”

We are not allowed to take photographs of the exhibition so there is little to show here other than the few photos I took before I found out that I was not allowed to take photos!

Amongst the more conventional museum exhibits are a large number of stuffed animals once or currently found in Tasmania


Tasmanian Devil	Bustard

Numerous dinosaurs and

vintage cars etc and because the museum

site was originally a railway iron works, some

remains of what it was like in the old days

complete with sounds and smells since many children today will never see heavy industry.

In the meantime it continues to rain, and the campsite we head for is waterlogged. This is a pity because it is known for the large number of indigenous species which come out on drier nights (wombats, possums, wallabies etc) and possibly is the only camp site which issues the advice “Do not be worried if you hear sounds from under your van in the night, wombats like to scratch themselves on the underside of your van” It is too wet for them to come out and we sleep soundly to the comforting noise of heavy rain on the roof.

Kelso to Coles Bay

What a difference a night makes, after heavy rain throughout the night, the morning brings

note the rake in the table, it is there to scrape away wombat and possum poo before you walk around on the grass

bright sunshine and a warm day, although

evidence of the heavy rain is everywhere with flooded areas of the campsite.

As we head east across the top of Tasmania,

the landscape quickly returns to that which we

love most – tall thin trees, ferns, loud

birdsong, colourful rocks and hot day Australian forest smells.

It is this type of countryside where the satnav gets a bit confused. It evidences this by suddenly saying something like “turn right in 100 metres” when there is absolutely no chance of you doing that unless you want to drive off the road, up the hillside or into a river etc.

This picture of the satnav has us theoretically some 170 metres off the road in the middle of the forest. We are not (as this photo shows).

The reason for this problem dates back to the founding of Tasmania. Rough maps of the island were sent back to the UK and there the planners said “Build a road between Town A and Town B. The landscape looks flat according to the map you have sent me, so lets make it a straight road.” Of course, the landscape was not flat, they simply had not surveyed it and so they built the road the best they could between A and B with curves which followed the hillside. They never bothered however to tell the planners back in the UK and so officially the road is straight and this is what was translated into a map for the SatNav. We have learnt not to necessarily believe the SatNav although it is a most useful tool when driving here.

Where the forests have been cleared, the landscape is flattish grassland with fields, almost like parts of the UK.

Country towns date back to the mid 1800s and some have not changed much since then.

Derby is a Classified Historic Town which dates from 1874 when tin was discovered in the area. At its peak, some 3000 people lived here, now there are around 300.

The Town Hall looks as if it were built then

as does the Bank

although this house has been modernised, it still shows it history. The Church is a simple wooden structure

but interestingly the brick chimney is separated by an air gap to stop the heat of the chimney setting fire to the wooden structure.

Some of the original buildings are still managing to stand (just)

Eventually the coast appears but it is not just a coast, it is a spectacular coast with large clean bays

and at Bicheno

a large bay which is also a harbour.

Freycinet National Park (our destination) is on the horizon with the characteristic peaks of it mountains as the landmark.

The West Coast of Tasmania

2011-11-25T06:54:00.000Z

Hobart to Strahan

The West Coast of Tasmania is known for a number of things – it is colder than much of the rest of Tasmania due to winds, it has the last remaining relatively unspoiled regions of the island in the South West National Park and it also has some of the most spoiled areas of the island (around Queenstown) – there would have been much more spoiling than there is if it were not for the fact that a very strong environmental lobby developed during the past 20 years with the objective of protecting the area as much as it could.

Having swapped

for a 7.5m long 2.8m high

and completed our unpacking in record time

we head out onto the country roads of Tasmania

having been warned to be careful. We did not see

any giant kangaroos as the sign suggests (although grey kangaroos apparently do live in Tasmania), we did however see numerous dead wallabies, wombats and possums along the road side.

Initially the scenery around the road from Hobart is beautiful in a typically Australian way – initially fields and cleared

forests giving way to mixed fields and forests and then mountains as you get further west

and lakes created by dams (here Lake Burbury created by the Darwin and Crotty dams) and then rather scraggy

woods before you get to the Queenstown area which is known for mining – both in the past (gold) and the present

(copper). The mountain ranges were originally heavily forested but these rapidly disappeared either for fuel or

simply because they were in the way of extracting the ore

in which metals are very evident.

The result is a rather desolate landscape with significant evidence of no environmental management. Some of the damage and pollution is so significant that it is estimated it will take 500 years to recover.

It is however very easy for us to criticise and say that everything should be protected because it was a beautiful area. The result would be a loss of employment in an area where there is nothing else other than mining and logging, tourism not being a big employer.

The population of Queenstown has gone up and down like a yoyo (currently going up) and the town has very much of a

wild outback feel about it. There is a lot to do here if you have the time. Rather incongruously, evidence of the tremendous wealth which used to exist in the town is given by a grand Art Deco Theatre, which has fallen on hard

times since the roof caved in during a storm a few years ago. Not even using it as an indoor cricket ground helped to keep it open.

The town is also home to what is being advertised as the

cheapest three bed roomed house in Tasmania at $29,000 Australian (£19,000 approx).

It does need a bit of work doing to it and is correctly being

advertised as ideal for a DIY enthusiast.

which is probably a bit of an understatement.

Not to far away on the coast (connected by a railway which is now used only by tourists) is Strahan (pronounced

Straun). Evidence of past prosperity is in the buildings along the harbour /

dockside and the numerous hotels / pubs which were built

to serve the miners of yesteryear. Nowadays, tourism and fishing are the big employers here and judging by the amount of holiday accommodation available in the area, it must be very popular with tourists during the summer.

Strahan to Stanley

The area to the north of Strahan is still visibly suffering from historic and recent mining / forestation etc

The above picture shows a section of what was forest which has been logged and the resultant land left bare. Much of the area has

been left like this with very little replanting. There is a large section of land running along the coast (as above) which has been bare for many years.

By chance on the way to the north coast, we choose to go into Zeehan to buy some food. What we then find is typical of the great unexpected discoveries which we regularly make when we follow a day unscripted in everything other than general direction (in this case, north). Most of the towns in the west have a history related to mining and Zeehan is no exception. Tin was discovered in 1871 and Silver in 1882 and $8 million worth had been mined by the early 1900s (equivalent to $200 million today).

As a consequence, it became a boom town and grew in population to around 10,000 (now it is 845) with a great variety of grand buildings still standing.

The Post Office (still in use)

The Commercial Bank of Tasmania which opened in 1891

Mining Institute (now the excellent West Coast Pioneers Museum)

and the Gaiety Theatre.

The Gaiety Theatre (also now part of the West Coast Pioneers Museum) was built in 1898 and seated 1000 people. It was then the largest concert hall in Australia.

It has recently been restored

and except when in use as a Theatre, shows on a continuous loop, a couple of the most famous people to visit the theatre.

Dame Nelly Melba

sings a solo

and Enrico Caruso and Nelly Melba sing

together

Both of the recordings played (not of their performance in Zeehan) are available on YouTube.

Also on display are a number of theatre posters

relating to the period.

Elsewhere in the museum are numerous rock samples (if that interests you), a blacksmiths shop, a model mine, recollections of historical events from the period and some maintained buildings such as the Freemasons Lodge

which as well as the display, has an account of Freemasonry and its history which attempts to counteract some of the negative publicity about Masons and to dispel some of their mystery.

And above we have the 1950s Magistrates Court with someone at the Bench.

The West Coast Pioneers Museum really was worth a visit.

Zeehan is also probably the place where the Australian Labour Party can claim to have been formed. A conference was held there in 1901 which drew up a platform for the proposed Workers' Political League, the leader of whom (John Earle) eventually becoming Premier of Tasmania in 1914. Their demands included adult suffrage, adequate payment of members of parliament, an eight-hour working day, a graduated land tax and free education.

The road north from Zeehan continues towards the North Coast through active mining areas, forests and fields. Most of the land in this area is owned and maintained by, through or on license from the Van Diemen’s Land Company which in itself is unique in that was granted a Royal Charter in 1825 by King George IV. There are a number of views about the company, its history and stewardship of Tasmania.

Salute to Ian Pearce

2011-11-23T22:18:00.000Z

Having come all this way just for the concert, it is only fitting that it has its own blog entry. In time, this will be expanded to include a video of part of the concert but we have to wait for that to arrive from Hobart – no doubt it will take a while.

This concert is being held at the University Concert Hall.

Devonport Jazz says of him:

Ian Pearce is an icon of the Tasmanian jazz scene. He was born in Hobart in 1921 and began playing piano at the age of twelve. In the 1930s, he picked up a cornet and, along with his brother Cedric and neighbour Tom Pickering, began imitating the jazz style they heard on recordings by musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman. This group became the Barrelhouse Four – founding the jazz music scene in Hobart. The group recorded its first record in 1946, and went on (under various names and line-up changes) to record further albums, play countless concerts and dances, as well as regularly play for ABC broadcasts.

Ian Pearce travelled with Graeme Bell on the famous Czechoslovakian tour of 1947, playing alongside Ade Monsbourgh, Don ‘Pixie’ Roberts and Lou ‘Baron’ Silbereisen.

Pearce’s impressive music career spans more than 70 years and continues with his current band, the Ian Pearce Quartet.

The following old video with him playing the piano (largely hidden) at the Hobart Jazz Club is on Youtube

Before the concert, the Hobart Mercury newspaper ran an article on him, just click on Ian Pearce Birthday Bash to see a PDF of it.

The Concert

Initially there were a number of pieces from the Ian Pearce Quartet who have played together for many years.

Then they were then joined by two jazz performers of renown from the mainland

(Bob Barnard and Paul Furniss) who had flown over just to perform in the concert.

Ian took the whole thing in his stride and seemed to ignore

the fact that he was 90 and just did what he liked doing –

playing jazz for the whole two hours with a

brief interruption for the cutting of a cake (shared with the audience afterwards) with two other performers who had a birthday in November. Regrettably, he is also hiding behind the piano in this clip so you will have to make do with listening to him. I am told that eventually a real video will arrive showing him playing.

Afterwards, it was signing CDs and autographing programmes for anyone who asked

and the first photograph of the three cousins (L-R Andrew Pearce, John Pearce, Paul Harvey)

taken since the last time they were all together in 1954 (L-R John Pearce, Paul Harvey, Andrew Pearce).

A post concert review appeared in The Hobart Mercury – again, click on this link to read it and to see a picture of the man in action.

All-in-all it was a great evening and a privilege to hear someone just sit down and skilfully play jazz as he has done for many many years.

Six days around Tasmania

2011-11-23T01:27:00.000Z

We have only a few days before we have to fly back to the UK so the amount of Tasmania we can see is quite limited. The rough plan is:

Wednesday	Drive around the D’Entrecasteux peninsular in a hire car to see some rural Tasmania close to Hobart
Thursday	Swap the car for a van, drive to Strahan and see whatever we can of the West Coast
Friday	Drive north west to Stanley
Saturday	Drive half-way across the top to Kelso
Sunday	Drive around the north east corner and down to Coles Bay and Freycinet
Monday	Walk in Freycinet National Park, then head back to Hobart

Around the D’Entrecasteaux Peninsular

As a taster for rural Tasmania, we are driving down and around what we assume is called D’Entrecasteaux

Peninsular, so named because the general area was surveyed in 1792 by Bruni d'Entrecasteaux

Nine Pin Point overlooks the channel

and on the other side is Bruny Island which has a reputation as a great place for wild life. Unfortunately, we do not have the time to go there.

We have no idea why this view is one of “Eggs and Bacon Bay”. One theory is that this might be where Lady Jane Franklin (an 18th century governor's wife) once either ordered or was served eggs and bacon. Believe it if you want to.

The nearby town of Cygnet (so called because D’Entrecasteaux saw swans swimming in the bay there) has its quota of 19th century buildings.

Here a general store which looks the same now as it did then (other than a colour change and plate glass)

and here an astonishingly beautiful house in remarkably well preserved condition – the town has an “official colour scheme” and both of these buildings have been painted in some of the “official colours”

Hobart is delightful and so are the towns around it

2011-11-22T05:02:00.000Z

Tasmania is a most attractive State. The approach by air passes over some interesting landscapes and if landing from the south across the sea, you get the chance to see some great beaches. Whilst it does not do so well with marks for “hot aussie sun” or “dry weather” etc with a climate close to being British, it seems even more relaxed and reluctant to get worked up over things than the rest of Australia.

Mount Wellington is one of the highest points in Tasmania and there is a winding road built during the 1930s Depression which takes you to its summit (1274m) from where you get a great view of Hobart (founded in the early 1800s), the bay within which it was built, the bridge and all of the surrounding suburbs. You can either stand inside an observatory to admire the view or go out into the bitingly cold wind on an exposed walkway.

Either way, on a clear day the view is impressive.

This view looks directly down on Hobart with the Tamar Bridge to the left and Sandy Bay mid right.

Hobart itself is a delightful city to look at. Having been established in the 1800s, it still has many buildings from

The above is a sign at the top of Kelly Street which is a set of steps leading down to Salamanca.

One of a number of buildings labelled “City Hall”

Simply marked as “Offices”

There can hardly be grander, more imposing entrance to a town house any where in Hobart than this

Salamanca Place is a row of Georgian Stone warehouses

now used as shops and cafes and where the Saturday Market takes place.

Another building labelled City Hall – this seems to have moved around Hobart a bit over the year.

This old bank is currently a planning controversy in that the red canopies are not allowed under the terms of its preservation listing and the Town Council is seeking to have them removed.

Like many cities in Australia (and New Zealand) there are some excellent examples of Art Deco

the old Colonial Mutual Insurance offices

The above is the home of the local daily newspaper

There are also some “great” examples from the 1960s.

This monster was presumably built so that the planners could show how easy it was to build something which can

easily dominate the skyline and overshadow anything with style built nearby! Regrettably, the above monster is not the only one of its kind an otherwise architecturally interesting CBD.

We are staying in an area called Battery Point (about 20 mins walk from the CBD) which seems to be full of delightful buildings from a number of periods starting from about the 1830s. It was one of the first areas to be settled and

Arthurs Circle has examples of two room cottages used by the Grison officers at that time.

And in no particular order, a selection of houses from the area:

This could have been the model for the Bayko houses of the 1950s (if you do not know what Bayko means you are obviously too young and need to click here)

a church hall now used as the community centre

now an Estate Agent (left) and restaurant (right)

Verandas were very popular before the advent of air conditioning

and come in different shapes

and sizes

and one house had taken topiary to an extreme by creating an entrance arch (which must be a bit difficult to keep in shape).

To someone who had just arrived from a country going through

the onset of winter, seeing roses in bloom was very strange

The old Colonial style extends out into the countryside and in Richmond there was this beautifully preserved pub with a large balcony

an imposing Court House

and a row of cottages fronting the main street which require only a little imagination to step back 150 years.

Whilst in central Hobart, we went to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Whilst its website warns you that it is under redevelopment and that many of the Galleries are closed, we were surprised at how little there actually was to see and also at the high quality of what there was to see. The Antarctica gallery portrays the beauty and harshness that we saw in Antarctica very well and there are some exhibits (such as Ice Core samples) which we have not seen elsewhere.

Somewhat surprisingly, there was also a superb display of high quality Roman coins which was not something we had expected to find in a land which was not known to the Romans (although one of their maps showed that they assumed something was at the bottom of the earth because otherwise they thought the earth would topple over if the land mass weight was only at the top). See this link for an explanation.

A quick dash to Tasmania

2011-11-19T19:07:00.000Z

When your uncle is one of Australia’s leading jazz Pianists and he announces that he is giving a 90th Birthday Concert (and you have never heard him play live), you have to put aside the excuse that going there and back takes 45 hours flying time, crosses 11 time zones, covers a distance of at least 22,208 miles (35,532 km) and (for the geographers) is 81° South and 147° East of where we live and that we are are very busy at the moment with too many other things and that a trip to Australia is not in the diary!

So we decide to hop on a plane to go to a concert on the other side of the planet (well almost the other side) and come back only a few days later. We are also going to fit in a few days in a campervan, visiting the parts of Tasmania which we did not see the last time we were both here (some 8 years ago).

As an aside, there is this very useful(!?!) software tool which lets you find out where (with respect to anywhere on the planet) the other side actually is. For us, the other side is in the middle of the ocean, very close to the International Date Line and some way south east of the southern island of New Zealand.

To be somewhere where the other side of the earth actually was Hobart, you would have to be in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Therefore a cold damp Saturday afternoon in mid November sees us heading off to Heathrow again (my fourth visit to Australia) to catch the largest passenger airplane currently flying (the Airbus A380) for a flight which (in economy), is more likely to have to be endured rather

than enjoyed. Luckily we have been able to cash in all of our air miles for these tickets because this is a quiet time of the year for flights to Australia and therefore the cost is not exorbitant. Previously we have been unable to spend them on long distance flights because we have been travelling at peak times and there were no air miles seats available (a common complaint of the avid air mile collector) unless you booked up a very long time in advance.

To our relief, this flight is actually operating. About three weeks ago, Qantas suddenly announced the grounding of all planes due to an industrial dispute. There then followed an interesting few days watching from afar, reaction to the dispute and the fairly swift emergence of an interim outcome. We were actually listening to ABC News Australia live through web streaming when news of the imposed interim solution was announced – the internet certainly is powerful.

Although we are only going to be in Australia for 8 days, we seem to have almost as much luggage as when we go away for a few months. It seems that about 2/3rds of our luggage comprises things that make life easy when you are living in a campervan and the amount is unrelated to the length of the holiday. The amount of clothes we take also is fairly unrelated to holiday duration because when on the road, we use washing machines whenever they present themselves. Everything gets checked off on the list and when possible, split between two bags so that if one bag gets lost or delayed, we do not loose everything.

The drive to Heathrow was going very well until we got to within 1 mile and a couple of minutes from the car park and we found that the police had closed the road for some unknown reason. Our satnav provided a 10 mile re-route and this took around 40 minutes of tense driving through heavy traffic and areas of London we did not know existed. To say that we felt some relief when we saw the car park ahead and even more relief when we got to the airport terminal an hour later than planned about 30 minutes before check-in closed is an understatement.

Our flight takes off reasonably on time and heads out across Europe for Singapore by traversing (as the Pilot puts it) “Europe, some of the Stans, India and down Malaysia”.

This route is quite close to the Great Circle Route which is the shortest line between two points on the globe.

From	To	Distance	Time	From	To	Distance	Time
LHR	SIN	6765 mi	12:55	HBA	SYD	645mi	1:45
SIN	MEL	3743 mi	7:35	SYD	SIN	3907mi	7:55
MEL	HBA	383 mi	1:15	SIN	LHR	6765mi	14:21
		10891mi	21:20			11317mi	24:01

Two meals, eight time zones and 2½ films later we reach our first transit which is at Singapore Changi and this has to be one of the best transit airports in the world. If flying to or from the far east, it certainly beats Hong Kong (a bit sterile) and the new Bangkok (horrid). Singapore seems to have set its stall out as being a good place to transit.

The A380 has a tail mounted camera so you can get a high pilot’s eye view of everything in front of the plane

A jumbo landing in front of us as we waited to take off

tail view from 35000 ft

Singapore Airport runway ahead (the lights)

Just about to land

Pulling onto our stand at the airport

Unfortunately our plane circled Singapore for some time waiting to land and as a consequence we did not have enough time whilst the plane was refuelled and reprovisioned to shower in the Rainforest Lounge which is bargain at only $8SD (about £4) – perhaps we may be able to on the way back (post script – we did).

Then it is back on the plane – two more films, more food, a little sleep, cross the equator and on towards Australia crossing some of the wildest parts we drove through in 2009.

and at Melbourne the following morning the tail camera shows:

Banking over Melbourne

Going over the city

About to land

The transit process from International to Domestic at Melbourne has a fairly bad reputation for queues, stress and effort. For the international traveller, after Immigration (aka Border Protection) there then follows the Quarantine Inspection Service.

We are used to both of these but they take time and when a number of large big jets arrive close together, the system gets strained. We have just over two hours to get into Australia and also check-in for our next (domestic) flight to Hobart. In the event, immigration is quick because they allow us to use the Australian Citizens channel, but our bags take for ever to arrive giving rise to thoughts that they had been left behind – relief again when they appear and the Quarantine Dog takes no interest in us when we are sniffed.

All international flights arrive at T2 and Qantas Domestic goes from T1 next door so having navigated the above, you have to go land side, then walk to the next terminal with your bags, queue up again to check-in for your next flight, go through security etc etc. This process is made more tedious by the fact that Qantas have introduced some automatic bag check-in machines which do not seem to work – they would only take one of our bags and human intervention was required to solve the problem. Many other passengers were having problems and we saw at least two miss their flights because they could not get their luggage accepted by the machine.

Hobart Airport is undergoing expansion / renovation but it

is a welcome sight and our car (booked through Quidco and Holiday Autos) is ready and waiting with only 1500kms on the clock and our SatNav takes us straight to our hotel.

And so, some 31½ hours after we closed our front door in England, we open our front door (for the next three days) in Hobart at the Grande-Vue Hotel which is more of a B&B than a hotel but is very comfortable.

Our “getting over Jet Lag Calculator” forbids us from immediately going to bed. We are instructed to get out into the light and we are not allowed to go to bed until 1530 and we have to get up again at 1800 and go back into the light (with different times specified for the following day). The routine (assisted by Melatonin) has worked in the past so we are prepared to obey the rules (once we did not rigidly obey the rules and we suffered as a consequence).

So it is out for a walk into Hobart, heading for the Salamanca Market area for a spot of lunch when the only thing our bodies are doing is to complain that they think it is 1 a.m. in the morning and they really do not want to eat and would rather be in bed!

La Trinità della Cava - Monastery

2011-09-26T15:48:00.000+01:00

Today we go home and this morning we have a bit of a filler with no relationship to Romans at all before we leave for the airport.

All week we have heard the clock bells from the Benedictine Abbey in the village. They

start at 6 am, chime every 15 minutes and seem to carry on until 11 pm. They are loud (but rather nice). This year is the 1000th anniversary of the founding of the monastery by Alferius of Pappacarbona (aka St Alferius).

We were told that now there are only 12 monks living in the large monastery at the

rear of the church.

We are going on a guided tour of the Church, the cave where Alferius lived (now under the church) and also we are going to see a few items in the museum. No photographs are allowed in the

museum where there is quite a nice majolica ware floor or the museum where there are some ancient vellum parchments.

The church is decorated in a very ornate

baroque style with every square millimetre of floor, wall and ceiling space covered.

Even the ceilings are works of art

and perhaps the only section that was not decorated was the walls of one of the caves Alferius lived in (he also seemed to have lived in a number of caves below this one in the crypt of the church).

It is very ornate and not to everyone’s taste. If you want to see more you will have to go there.

The trip back was easy apart from the plane being late. Other than being exhausted, we had a great time, learnt a lot and enjoyed being with our new friends.

Andante were very good, as was our guide, tour manager and coach driver. Where to next with Andante we wonder – we will have to try to fit something in during 2013 because 2012 is already full.

Oplontis – the Villa Poppea

2011-09-25T12:23:00.000+01:00

The Villa Poppea at Torre Annunziata (Roman Oplontis) is an astonishing villa in terms of the quality of its frescoes and its size. It was thought to have been owned by the second wife of Nero - Poppaea Sabina. She was his mistress and later became his 2nd wife. In 65AD when she was pregnant, he kicked her in the stomach and she died.

This deduction stems from some graffiti scratched in wet plaster which says “Mnesthei Beryllos” meaning “Be Beryllos Remembered” (or remember Beryllos). Beryllos was the name of Nero’s secretary.

It was uninhabited at the time of the eruption as was possibly under repair from the 62AD earthquake – this being deduced from the fact that little furniture but a lot of building materials were found there. It has a large swimming pool which was full of water at the time of the eruption.

It was discovered in the 1500s when a canal was being dug through the site (they carried on digging) and not excavated properly until the 1960s. Part of the villa is still under modern buildings and other villas are known to be nearby.

It is hard to take decent photographs in the villa because flashes are banned because of possible damage to the frescoes.

So as an amuse-bouche:

Part of the Triclinium

A fresco in Apollo’s Shrine and a detail from it.

A moulded and painted pelmet around the top of one of the room

Looking from a bedroom through an atrium with a plant growing in the atrium, a second style fresco of a plant on a wall of the atrium and a window beyond.

A niche in the caldarium and a detail of the fresco on the wall which shows Hercules in the Hesperides orchard (he had to kill a dragon and steal some apples).

A clever fresco of a glass vase

Around the peristyle were second and fourth style frescos. Above a second style bird and below some larger sections of a fourth style fresco

and some details from this fresco.


a bird	a dormouse or a frog

a grasshopper

a running goat

Around the villa are a few signs of everyday life such as

a wooden door also showing its hinges,

the kitchen,

and the toilet.

This really is a wonderful villa and although close to the Torre Annunziata Circumvesuvana Station, it does not seem to have many visitors because most go to Pompeii, some to Herculaneum and few to elsewhere.

There are numerous websites devoted to this villa including Google Sites, Wikipedia and The Oplontis Project.

Vesuvius

2011-09-25T08:45:00.000+01:00

The task this morning is to climb Vesuvius, not from the bottom thank goodness but from the car park which is about 500 metres below the true summit.

Toilets in Italy are a variable matter and our Tour Manager Belinda seems to know the location and quality of every toilet in the area and so we stop off at a service station on the Autostrada on our way to Vesuvius to make use of the facilities. This also gives us a view of the volcano.

Looking at the photo above, the volcano car park is on the left hand side of the volcano somewhat below the flattish bit of the rim. You then walk up to and around the rim and if you hire a guide (around 75 euro per group), you can go up to the highest part of the rim.

Just below the summit is a long thin car park with a cafe and a certain amount of chaos. There used to be a cable car to the summit (well known through the song Funiculì, funiculà), but this fell out of use in 1944 after an eruption.

A booth sells tickets to proceed further for 8 euro (2011) and a

rather nice range of tacky souvenirs are available as you go through the entrance.

On the right as you walk up is a view of the 1944 lava flow (the last serious eruption).

The path wends it way uphill and is a very easy walk in normal shoes.

Although there is a view of Naples (as you go up) and Pompeii when you have got to the top, it is usually very hazy and good views are unlikely.

We picked up a tour guide to take us to the very top at the Guide Service Office but immediately I started to doubt his word because he seemed very evasive and kept saying it might or might not be possible to get to the top that day. However, not being an Italian speaker, I kept quiet and we went on.

He explained the shape of the volcano with a picture drawn on the path – essentially the left hand side blew off at some stage.

The crater is of a typical shape with not a lot happening at the moment (thank goodness). The picture above has the lower part of the rim on the right and the high part of the rim (refer to the picture at the top of this blog) over the rest of the picture. If you proceed to the top, you just walk further and go up onto the high part of the rim (sensible shoes essential).

Fumaroles are everywhere but you can only get to them by climbing over the fence (as our “guide” and we did).

After about 1 km, you get to a second office at 1167m above sea level and here general access stops. At this point our “guide” decided he could not go further (we suspect because he was receiving lots of interesting offers from people we had passed on the way up) – so we never got to the highest point on Vesuvius!

If you want to monitor Vesuvius activity from afar, click here which takes you to the volcano monitoring site and also where there is more information about the volcano.

Herculaneum and Boscoreale

2011-09-24T16:13:00.000+01:00

Herculaneum (click on the name to go to Google sites about the town) is similar to Pompeii in that it is a buried city but it is also different in a number of important respects.

It was smaller (about 1/4 of the population) and only about 1/4 of the city is excavated. It is in better condition than Pompeii and as a visitor, you get a far better feel as to how a city worked. It also attracts fewer tourists.

By now, we are feeling more confident when we approach a site in that we are beginning to be able to “read a site”. However our guest lecturer and mentor (Alistair Small) is too polite to tell us if we have got it completely wrong and are talking rubbish! And so today, after an initial guided tour, we are being given some time on our own to go off and explore with our developing knowledge (not that it has ever been banned).

Once you have got past the helpful Information Point (no staff, no maps, no cafe, no seats (“do not sit on the floor”) but not “no entrance fee”)

the image that greets you is quite astonishing

Laid out below you is a seemingly working city (without its original inhabitants).

At the bottom of the plan (and also the photograph) is where the dockside originally was.

Ignore that it looks like a moat, it is now below sea level and pumps are constantly pumping water out. Apparently the water is full of bullfrogs but we did not see any.

The town was covered by 20m of a different type of mud and ash to that at Pompeii and this photograph shows the thickness at the “sea shore”.

You get into the city either by crossing a bridge at the far end of the panorama photograph or (best choice) by going down a tunnel (again starting at the far end) which brings you out on the sea shore. Thus you enter the city as its seaborne inhabitants would have.

Once in the city, to the left is

a narrow alley that was one of the routes up from the docks and to the right is a plinth erected in memory of Marcus Nonius Balbo.

He was the city's major benefactor restoring and building many public buildings. On his death he was made patron and feted with many honours, detailed in the long inscription on his funeral altar.

“In view of the proposal of Marcus Ofillius Celer, twice duumvir, that the dignity of the township required recognition of the merits of Marcus Nonius Balbus, the Council resolved the following: Seeing that Marcus Nonius Balbus, so long as he lived here showed a parental disposition of extraordinary generosity to individuals and the community, the councillors decided that an equestrian statue be erected to him at public expense in the most frequented spot with the inscription: 'To Marcus Nonius Balbus, praetor, proconsul, patron, (from) the entire Council of the people of Herculaneum in recognition of his merits. Further, at the spot where his ashes are laid a marble altar should be made and erected, and publicly inscribed: 'To Marcus Nonius Balbus son of Marcus' and that the procession of Parentalia should part from this spot, and that at the customary athletic games one day should be dedicated to his honour, and on the occasion of performances at the theatre a seat should be placed for him.
Resolved.

Many of the streets look like the original inhabitants have just gone inside for a few moments

except perhaps for the lack of

rubbish.

Above is the Decumanus Maximus – the main street which always runs East-West.

The old water system is evident with lead pipes under the pavement and a nice T off one into a house. On the old water tower (behind the water trough) in the right hand picture above

is a sign which says:

“Anyone who wants to shit in this place is advised to move along. If you act contrary to this warning, you will have to pay a penalty. Children must pay [number missing] silver coins. Slaves will be beaten on their behinds”

Exactly how literal a translation we do not know!

One can see how deep the ash was in the town by this first floor window which

still contains solid ash in the grill.

On the Decumanus Maximus is an advert for a wine shop with the original price list still on the wall. The sign reads “ad cumanas” which apparently means “go to the sign of the bowls”

Closer examination of the price

list shows the actual wine costs.

Nearby to the right of the House of Neptune and Amphitrite, (also known as the House of the Neptune Mosaic because of this mosaic

and also a rather fine frieze)

is a wine shop with original amphora

and partitions inside which survived the eruption.

We do not know if it was the wine shop referred to in the street sign.

Off the Decumanus Maximus is a rather nice Domus (house) called the House of the Black Hall (Casa del Salone Nero) which must have been a cool haven off the street back in the AD70s.

Part of the original charred door and the lintel above it still remains.

This was a large house

with a reasonably large peristyle

with a fountain in the middle.

The house gets its name from a black room (fourth style)

with a rather nice floor. The general rule was nice floor = plain walls; flash walls = plain floor. The floor does not look much when it is dusty but clean it and (wow!). It is made up of lots of different and some quite rare marble.

Not all houses were small. One house (The House of Argus) has a very large peristyle that has now been replanted with apple trees. It is quite astonishing to come across a house of this size within the middle of a small town.

On the Decumanus Maximus is The House of the Augustan Cult

with an original plaque inside

plus some rather nice frescoes

and to the right of the frescos is the caretakers room (window shown above left – the perspex is not original!) and inside the bed he was sleeping on when he died in the eruption – his bones being clearly visible.

The Samnite House has a nice atrium but this shows a couple of developments in atrium design. Because of restricted

house plot size, the atrium is virtually on the street i.e you come in the front door off the street and almost immediately you are in the atrium which is of Tuscan design – this means that there is an

inward sloping roof supported by beams with gargoyles around

the opening. The compluvian is open to the air (the roof you can see in the picture is a modern addition for preservation reasons) and rain water discharges into the impluvium below.There are solid beams supporting the atrium roof. Some of the walls in this house show evidence of ancient (and possibly some modern) repair.

In a side room there are a few frescoes

and here are a couple of fine

details from them.

There is a lot more on the site which we saw including the Male and Female Baths, the Palaestra and numerous other buildings – far too much to include here.

To finish Herculaneum, two rather nice frescoes which I show just because they are nice.

The bottom one particularly impresses us with the way that you can see through the drawn glass.

Boscoreale

Not too far away at Boscoreale is what used to be a farm house in the middle of the countryside – La Villa Regina. Now it is in the middle of

an estate of council flats and was discovered (1977) when the flats were being built. It has been rebuilt and some

crops planted around it to give an idea of what a farm looked like and how it operated. Within the farm yard are a number of Dolio which are very large amphora (apparently about 600ltrs volume)

used for storing the olive oil, wine, wheat etc produced by the farm. These were quite valuable to farmers and often repaired when they were broken or damaged.

Unfortunately, the authorities have closed it indefinitely “for repairs” but there is no sign of repairs taking place, only grumpy curators who seem to be annoyed that you have come to the site and the attached museum – L’Antiquarium. Click here to go to the Google sites pages on the Villa Regina and see pictures of the inside.

Outside of the museum are some tree roots from the time of the eruption – strange to touch a tree over 2000 years old.

Inside the museum are a large variety of items related to the eruption period (tools, food, everyday items) and it could be interesting had the museum taken more care on labelling its exhibits (and the staff tried to look welcoming rather than scowl the whole time). Being the only visitors there that day, we had a good chance to walk around. Amongst the more unusual exhibits was

this Dormouse Pot – used for keeping and breading dormice. Dormice were a delicacy and often eaten as part of a first course.

Inside the pot is a pouch for food and a ramp around the inside for the mice to get up and down the pot to their food.

Recipe for cooked dormouse:

Skin then stuff them with a mixture of pork mince, dormouse meat trimmings, pepper, nuts, asafoetida (a sort of giant fennel aka devil’s dung or stinking gum) and garum (a very pungent fish sauce) and then roast – two per person.

Of somewhat macabre interest are

a number of bodies recovered from the Pompeii area. Including this pig

a dog which was chained up at the time of the eruption

and four bodies whose positions tell their story. Note the clothes on the body in the top photograph.

The morning was very interesting, the afternoon less so, simply because of the attitude of the museum.

Seaside villas at Stabiae

2011-09-23T09:20:00.000+01:00

Today is a half day, something we need after four days of intensive activity. This morning we are visiting a couple of seaside villas and this afternoon is free for us to do whatever we want.

After Sulla put down a rebellion in this area in 89BC, a number of wealthy Romans built large luxury villas on the flat hilltop overlooking the sea. There were at least 6 within a distance of 1.5km and three have been excavated.

The sea used to lap at the bottom of the cliff upon which the villas were built and the Romans had tunnels dug from their villa down to the foreshore. With some imagination applied to the above picture, you can imagine what a view might have looked like out across the sea.

This is what it looks like now! the sea being some distance away.

Click on the villa name to go to the Googlesites pages about the villas.

Villa San Marco

This is a large villa under restoration with an extremely keen and loquacious site superintendent “Signor Bruno”.

Often you can see the extent of the rebuild because a tile line is placed on top of the original wall.

Actually finding the site could be difficult

because you have to walk through what looks like someone's back garden.

The villa has the remains of some fine frescoes but nothing which really takes your breath away. What the villa does offer us however, is a chance to practise “reading a site”. Essentially this means determining how the building worked, why things are where they are, how they were built and imagining how it might have been when occupied. There are relatively few visitors here so we have a good chance to clamber over it.

Back in the AD70’s the villa was thought to have looked like this. It is one of the largest Roman villas ever discovered in Italy, measuring more than 11,000 m2. It has gardens, an atrium, a colonnaded courtyard containing a pool, a triclinium (dining room) and it had a great views of the bay of Naples. It also had the standard design for a private thermal bath.

This photograph is of the Peristyle (courtyard numbered 66 surrounded by a colonnade numbered 1&2) and is taken roughly where the 1 is on the plan above. The Peristyle is large – and by large we mean very large. It continue for about 130m, underneath the site office, then under an orchard until one gets to the far end

which is under excavation.

The pillars around the Peristyle

are of the usual brick internal construction with a rendered stucco surface but the surface is a spiral flute, quite a time consuming task to make (wealth!)

In the centre of the house (15) there is a large “infinity pool”.

At the top end of this pool is a Nymphaeum (a grotto with a natural water supply dedicated to the nymphs) which contains

some quite delicate stucco carvings. The pool looks out towards the sea via an

uninterrupted view.

across a patio.

There is a nice portico surrounding the pool

and along the walls of the portico are a

few frescoes. Most of the really nice ones

were removed to Naples but in a side room used by the family to relax are a few really

dainty ones which have survived. I say survived because often (back in the 17 to 1800s) if they decided that a fresco was not nice enough to be removed, it was defaced.

The atrium is immediately off the main entrance (in Roman times) to the villa.

It has a central impluvium which is a water tank in the floor of an atrium which has above it, an opening in the middle of its roof called the compluvium.

There are a few surviving frescoes as decoration.

The bath area has its own atrium and here

the caldarium has the standard hollow floor

to allow the circulation of warm air to heat the water. In the centre of the floor was a large boiler which has been removed, exposing the hypocaust below. The boiler was one of several items taken by Sir William Hamilton that were lost in 1798 when the ship 'Colossus' carrying them foundered off the Scilly Isles.

The Frigidarium is more like a cold bath and all frescoes have disappeared.

All in all, this in an interesting villa and a good one to explore.

Villa Arriana

This villa was possibly as large as that as San Marco but large parts of it have collapsed down the cliff and so its exact

dimensions will never be determined.

It is similar in design to San Marco but its remaining original frescoes are in better order. Where a really good fresco has been removed and taken to a museum, it has been replaced with a very good picture copy of the original in the same position. This is a good idea because whenever we see an original out in the open, we can see it is deteriorating because of the weather.

This is the Peristyle (f on the map above).

It was in this villa that the four frescoes


Flora as Primavera	Medea

Leda and the Swan	Diana the Hunter

which are now in the Naples Museum were discovered.

Many of the rooms are nicely decorated. Here is a fourth style fresco and (below) a detail from another fourth style

There are lots of repeat pattern freezes in the villa and we never came to a conclusion as to if they were all hand

painted or if a stencil was used

I have included this fresco because I think it is one of the best examples I have seen so far of a complete room

They are attempting to restore the ceiling but a large chunk has fallen down (bottom left of picture above)

It is a 4th style room with a large mythological fresco on each wall. Here you can see Dionysus who has just arrived at

Naxos, glimpsing Ariadne asleep.It takes little imagination to continue the design around the walls, fill in the

gaps, add a bit of furniture etc.

Frescoes seem to be based around certain colours. Black (as in the Third Style above) came from the carbon created by burning brushwood or pine chips. Ochre provided yellow. Red came from either from cinnabar, red ocher, or from heating white lead. Blue was made from mixing sand and copper, and then baking the mixture. The deepest shade of purple was by far the most precious colour, as it was usually obtained from sea whelks.

A good explanation of the style of painting and colour creation can be found here.

The site also contains lots of spoilt frescoes

where they were hacked with a plaster

chisel after the decision was taken not to remove them to a museum.

Although we have the choice of going back to Pompeii for an additional afternoon; or visiting the Archaeological Museum of Ancient History in Nola (a journey involving four trains); or anything else we choose; the strain of getting up at 6.30 am to go out onto the road at 8.30 am and getting back to the hotel after 6 pm is beginning to take its toll. So an afternoon siesta is in order – after all, this is supposed to be a holiday!

Pozzuoli

2011-09-22T20:06:00.000+01:00

Pozzuoli is famous for a number of things including the Roman Amphitheatre and the Macellum. Before we get to those, this is:

where St Paul landed on his way to Rome;

where Caligula ordered a temporary floating bridge to be built using trading vessels, stretching for over two miles from the town to Baiae, across which he proceeded to ride his horse. An astrologer had predicted that he had "no more chance of becoming Emperor than of riding a horse across the Gulf of Baiae;

the place where the first effective concrete in Roman times was made from the local volcanic sand, pozzolana;

a place which significantly demonstrates bradyseism activity (more later on this).

The Amphitheatre

Seating approximately 40,000 and 74m by 41m, the Flavian Amphitheatre (Amphitheatrum Flavium) is the third largest in the Roman world after The Coliseum and the Capuan Amphitheatre.

In the historical past, part of the amphitheatre has been demolished and reused in local houses

Running under the amphitheatre floor are numerous passages and cells where animals were kept. The corridors in the left hand picture was probably roofed over with planks at arena level and there was some sort of trap door to provide access for animals etc. In the right hand picture, there would have been two floors with some unknown mechanism for opening the doors of the cages from below so that animals could get into the arena.

The size of the tunnels and the effort expended in their creation is astonishing. Each of the millions of bricks in the amphitheatre was hand made and then baked in a kiln using wood from local forests. Felling the forests caused erosion and the soil which was washed down the rivers eventually made a number of seaports (such as Pompeii), inland towns.

Calculating the number of slaves who must have been involved and its impact on the local economy would be an interesting exercise.

The Macellum

This was an arcaded square courtyard, surrounded by two-storey buildings. Shops lined the marble floored colonnade which had 34 granite columns around its edge. There was a Tholos in the centre of the square perhaps with a well for water and maybe where fish was sold or perhaps where the shrine to the gods of the market was kept.

The remains include three columns in cipolin marble which

show erosion from marine Lithophaga molluscs when, at an earlier time, the ground level was much lower due to Bradyseism, and sea-water could flow in. This is essentially a periodic raising and lowering of the ground level due to volcanic activity in the area, here by as much as 10m. The pillars were once below sea level, hence the mollusc damage. That sea flooding was a problem to the Romans is

evidenced by the walkways they constructed across the macellum floor. There is also a toilet in one

corner - typically a communal squat with a water trough for rinsing your sponge.

National Archaeological Museum Naples

2011-09-22T13:12:00.000+01:00

Today we spend the morning in the National Archaeological Museum and the afternoon at Pozzuoli to see one of the largest amphitheatres in the world.

Click on any of the pictures in the blog entry to see a larger version.

Naples has a fairly poor reputation as a tourist city, it is said to be very dirty because of continuing problems of rubbish disposal and also because of tourist muggings and robbery. The former is evident throughout the city and the latter is not a problem for us because we are aware of the risk and stay together. Getting there involves a longish drive because of the traffic and a quick dismount from the coach outside of the museum because of the traffic police. One of the problems when visiting the museum is that they have a reputation of closing galleries without warning so you are never sure what you are going to see. It does however contain some most amazing statues and frescoes because a lot of what was not looted or taken by the Bourbon Kings for their own palaces has landed up in the museum including numerous frescoes from Pompeii and elsewhere. Once you get into the museum (in itself a trial), there is no re-entry that day on your ticket and you cannot eat lunch there (no cafe) nor eat in the museum itself. However, by the end of the morning, we are all convinced that it is well worth the visit. Rarely have we come across such a brilliant collection of fine statues, frescoes and other works of art from the Roman period. Labelling of the exhibits is sometimes poor but that does not detract from the brilliance of the place.

Therefore there follows, numerous photos and little explanation but just enjoy the pictures.


Alexander Severus AD225	Julius Caesar late AD200

Tiberius AD40	Vespasian AD80

an unknown bust with an alabaster mantel	a Vestal 1cBC to 3cBC

Sophocles	Socrates

Herodotus	Claudius AD41

Farnese Lar 2nd C AD	Warrior with Child Achilles & Troilus 2-3C AD

Aphrodite	(of the beautiful buttocks)

her buttocks – hence the name!


Farnese Hercules at Rest 2-3C AD	and his Spare Legs!

The Hercules was discovered without its legs so a student of Michelangelo made a new set. When the original legs were discovered, a decision was made to keep the new legs in place because they were felt to better. This was the case until the 18th C when sense prevailed!

Julia Agrippina

Roasting of the Boar 1C BC

Three different heads of Seneca

Perhaps the best sculpture we saw in the museum was the Farnese Bull – we could have spent far longer looking at it and learning about how it was carved and later reconstructed. It represents the punishment of Dirce who was guilty of maltreating Antiope and her punishment was to be tied to a bull by Antiope’s sons Zetus and Amphion.

The young shepherd, animals and rural landscape relate to the woods on Mount Cithaeron sacred to the god Dionysus. The lyre represents Amphion who with his music and voice raised the walls of the city of Thebes.


The Farnese Bull

detail	detail
	The bull is the largest sculpture carved from a single block of marble which has been found. It was found in bits over a period of years and has gradually been reconstructed (chart on the left)

more of the astonishing fine detail. It really is a most remarkable sculpture.

another beautiful sculpture is that of Flora Maggiore 2nd C AD. Again the detail is astonishing.

On the first floor is the Hall of the Sundial which, apart from its most amazing ceiling displays the Farnese Atlas. This is possibly the oldest existing depiction of Atlas from Greek mythology, and the oldest view of the Western constellations, possibly based upon the star catalogue of Hipparchus


Hall of the Sundial	Farnese Atlas


Ceiling Detail	Star Globe

The Apotheosis of Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina from 1781 in an astonishing ceiling painting.

Frescoes

The museum also contains numerous frescoes from villas and houses around the area. Choosing which ones to include here is a difficult choice because there are so many fine examples on display. Amongst them (and our favourites) were:

Two frescoes, the top one coming from a Triclinium (an eating room with three seater couches ) being in the third style. The lower one comes from a dining room with a seated women (symbolizing Asia), the old man on the left is a traveller.

Prizes for an athletic competition

The Centaur Chiron (who was the inventor of medicine and surgery) standing between Apollo and Asclepius (Gods), to whom he is said to have taught medicine.


Jason and Pelias	Europa seated on a Bull

Pan and his Pipes	Paris seated

Medusa planning the murder of her children	a detail
	Perseus and Andromeda

Two Lares (household guardian Deities) pour wine from a drinking horn and a bucket. In the centre is a sacrificial stone. Beneath are a pair of serpents who are symbolically bringers of prosperity and abundance and they have brought eggs to be placed on the altar. Houses would usually have a number of Larariums (a shrine) where offerings and prayers were made to symbols of the household gods. When people were fleeing Pompeii, many took their Lares with them.

The Girl with a Stylus (Sappho) is a favourite fresco of most visitors to the museum. It is thought that it is not a portrait of a real girl but a stylised image. It was made toward the end of the 1st C AD. She is thinking as she is about to write on a wax tablet

This status symbol fresco was found in a house in Pompeii that is believed to have belonged to the baker Terentius Proculus and his brother Terentius Neo, a magistrate. The portrait is of the wealthy and educated magistrate and his wife. He is dressed in a toga and displays a papyrus scroll with a red seal. His wife is wearing a tunic and mantle and has a hairstyle that was popular in the middle of the first century. Pressed to her chin is a stylus which she would use to make notes on the wax-coated double-leaved wooden tablet which she is holding in her left hand. He had this fresco positioned in his atrium so that all visitors would see it.


Flora as Primavera	Medea

Leda and the Swan	Diana the Hunter

These four frescoes come from the seaside Villa Arianna at Stabiae and were recovered from the ash when the villa was excavated.

Mosaics

Numerous mosaics were removed from villas and it has to be said that their long term preservation is more secure in the museum than in their original site.

Dog on a lead

a Panther

Two fighting cocks

Pillar decorated with mosaic

Pond animals

Sea with fish

Cat and a Partridge

Close up of a frog showing the fine mosaic work

Animal scene

detail

Head of Medusa in a floor section

Gabinetto Segreto

Also in the museum is the (in)famous Gabinetto Segreto (Secret Museum) which contains some of the most explicit finds from Pompeii. This contains those exhibits deemed obscene and unsuitable for the general public to see and therefore in 1819 they were locked away in a Secret Museum for the public good. The Gabinetto was then only accessible to "people of mature age and respected morals", which in practice meant only educated males. The doorway was bricked up in 1849. Re-opened, closed, re-opened again and then closed again for nearly a hundred years, the secret room was finally re-opened in 2000. Most of the exhibits are too explicit for a public blog

but here is an example of a fresco in the room

and also an example of graffiti taken from Pompeii. Some of the exhibits are truly astonishing.

The Brothels of Pompeii

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One of the most popular buildings in Pompeii (both then and now) is the Brothel which has some rather beautiful (if somewhat graphic) frescoes depicting the services on offer.

There were in fact around 25 brothels (known as lupanare – meaning Wolf Dens) in the city. We visited three of them, one of which is not open to the general public. We were told that a typical visit fee in the AD70s would be 2 asses which has been estimated as equivalent these days to €2 (2011).

Some brothels had signs up on the wall indicating what went on inside.

There are also phallic symbols on the pavements in various

places although these apparently were sometimes there as luck charms and not always indicating a brothel nearby.

These days, the most visited brothel often has queues of

up to 30 minutes to get in (and there is a one way system operating on the streets in the area to manage the queues) although when we were there it was about 5 minutes.

Although over two floors, only the first floor is open to the casual tourist and above is a typical room (one of about 7 on the ground floor) with its solid stone bed, presumably originally covered by a mattress.

On the walls above the cells were a range of frescoes

which we assume were for decoration rather than a menu of services on offer. Flash photography is not allowed and hence the quality of the pictures is a bit poor.

Brothels seemed to be quite popular in this area, above is a single cell room presumably for a sole operator (usually a slave) – again a solid stone bed.

Immediately outside of the city walls down where the old dockside used to be near the Porta Marina are one of the Public Baths which also served as a brothel. Evidence of where the ships used to tie up is obvious

from the rings on the wall. The sea is now a few kilometres away. Routine visitors are not allowed into this section because it is not designed for easy walk through and much of the work is fragile. However, because we were with an Andante archaeological tour, we were taken through the locked gates and down into the building.

Being a baths, there is an obvious palaestra (outdoor exercise yard), exercise being an essential part of the bath process. The outside has lost much of its decorations other than an ornate door.

The hot baths are somewhat unusual in that there used to be a large copper cauldron in the middle of the bath heated by a

fire underneath.

The Cold Room has a beautifully decorated stucco ceiling in some disrepair. Next to the cold room in the baths is a

room with a rather nice mosaic although the blue is said to be blue glass rather than blue tiles.

The frescoes are not in the greatest condition in this area

but fragments, such as this Hippopotamus show that

exotic animals were not unknown in ancient Pompeii.

The jury is out on the use of one area.

This fresco pictures at the top and underneath each one is a Roman numeral. One interpretation is that the numbers refer to lockers and that this was a changing room, decorated with frescoes and lockers for the use of patrons,

another is that this is a menu of services on offer.

There is also some graffiti on the wall whose meaning we could not work out but we could guess.

There are plenty of online explanations of the general system and more pictures and charts of some quite well executed (if somewhat explicit) art providing evidence of a somewhat laissez faire attitude to sex in the Roman world.

Pompeii

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Pompeii is probably the most famous archaeological site in the world and we have been promised an exhausting day seeing all of the most important places open to the public plus a few bits which are not open to the casual visitor. And so, roughly in the order of our long day:

Public Buildings you should visit
1 = Temple of Apollo
2 = The Forum
3 = Temple of Jupiter
4 = Macellum
5 = Building of Eumachia
6 = Basilica
7 = Forum Baths;
8 = Stabian Baths
9 = Triangular Forum & Doric Temple
10 = Large Theatre
11 = Small Theatre (Odeon)
12 = Gladiators Barracks (Quadriportico)
13 = Amphitheatre
14 = Palaestra
15 = Nuceria Gate Cemetery
16 = Herculaneum Gate Cemetery
17 = Temple of Isis
18 = Castellum Aquae

Private Buildings you should visit
19 = The Villa of the Mysteries
20 = House of Pansa
21 = A Bakery
22 = House of Vetti
23 = House of Faun
24 = House of the Ancient Hunt
25 = Brothel
26 = Fullery of Stephanus
27 = Thermopolium of Vetutius Placidus
28 = House of Loreius Tiburtinus
29 = House of Venus in the Sea Shell

We enter at 10 am by the Amphitheatre Gate (bottom right of the site map) which is really the back entrance. This is deliberate because the majority of visitors go in the front

entrance and therefore we will be away from the crowds for a few hours.

Immediately to the left of the Amphitheatre is the view of Vesuvius which must have been visible to city inhabitants back in AD79 when the eruption took place – thankfully currently free of volcanic smoke and ash. The shape of the volcano has changed over the past 2000 years because of many eruptions but it makes quite an impressive view.

The construction shows how adept the Romans were at making arched structures

and also here shows evidence of repair (the inner arch) following the earthquake of AD 62.

Fixed onto the wall just before you go into the arena is a copy of an inscription tablet which records

C(aius) Quinctius C(ai) f(ilius) Valgus / M(arcus) Porcius M(arci) f(ilius) duovir(i) / quinq(uennales) coloniai honoris / caussa spectacula de sua / peq(unia) fac(iunda) coer(averunt) et coloneis / locum in perpetuom deder(unt)

It states that Quinctius Valgus and Marcus Porcius, who were duovirs or magistrates of Pompeii, had the amphitheatre erected at their own expense.

The amphitheatre seats about 20,000 and differed to others because it has no underground area – it was built into an excavated hollow in the hillside.

There are however numerous tunnels and rooms underneath the sides of the amphitheatre.

One of the exit ramps shows post holes which supported a rail to keep people (left) separate from wheeled traffic (right).

There is also an inscription stone at another entrance recording in Latin:

C. CVSPIVS C. F. PANSA PATER D. V. I D IIII. QVINQ. PRAEF. ID. EX. D. D. LEGE. PETRON.

C(aius) Cuspius C(ai) f(ilius) Pansa pater d(uum) v(ir) i(ure) d(icundo) IIII quinq(uennalis) praef(ectus) i(ure) d(icundo) ex d(ecreto) d(ecurionum) lege Petron(i)

and this records the names of people (father and son, Cuspius and Pansa) who paid for the restoration of the amphitheatre following the earthquake.

Unfortunately Pompeii has become notorious over the past few years for poor maintenance despite the fact that 2 million people visit it each year and pay around €20million in entrance fees.

Here the via dell’ Abbondanza (one of the two main streets) shows evidence of the collapse of buildings and

walls but also evidence of the pumice depth following the eruption - up to the top of the brickwork (a couple of pictures above) which is about 4 metres (more or less in other places around the site).

The street is so named because there is a roadside fountain on the street with the tap coming out of the mouth

of the Goddess Abundantia (the Roman Goddess of Abundance and Prosperity).

As an aside, the pumice layer is clearly evident

in some of the earth banks around the outside of the town (here a horizontal line about 1/3rd of the way up the picture)

Elsewhere, the streets are in good condition

and you get a very good feel for how the town must have been before the eruption.

If the road had a “dead end” , a somewhat unambiguous method was adopted to ensure that you did not drive your cart any further.

The road contains stepping stones at various places along its length – these exist because there was no main sewer system and all rain water / animal waste was washed down the street by the rain. Wagon wheel ruts clearly show between the stones and apparently the width between the wheels of a standard Roman wagon (as measured by the ruts) is exactly the same as standard railway gauge of 4ft 8 1/2 inches (or 1.4m approx).

It is said that Julius Caesar set this width under Roman law so that vehicles could traverse Roman villages and towns without getting caught in stone ruts of differing widths. Over the centuries this became the traditional standard. Click on the link above to read one theory as to how Roman Wagon Wheel width has influenced the size of moon rockets!

Some of the back streets look just like back streets in

some middle eastern towns today. Unsurprisingly, Pompeii

can get crowded – we were there on a quiet day apparently.

The town benefited from a pressurized water system. Water entered the town from an aqueduct and went into a large

chamber at the highest part of the town where it was split into three flows to different parts of the town by a chamber which contained stones which divided the flow. It then went down hill to water tanks on the tops of towers

from which it flowed through lead pipes into houses and

fountains etc. The problems of lead poisoning were known but the Romans had no alternative to offer.

Pompeii contains numerous examples of posters and signs. The above requests support for a candidate in the local elections.

There were few street signs in ancient Pompeii, here the pictorial sign is of two slaves carrying an amphora possibly indicating something wine related in the area, the sign beneath is modern.

Let “sleeping dogs lie” or “Cave Canem”? – there are a number of stray dogs living in the town.

Shops, mainly bars (aka Caupona) are along the main

street. This counter is covered in marble and behind it you can see some of the amphora which were buried in the counter to store food for serving.

A rather shifty looking barman was seeking custom at one

caupona.Some original wall decorations remain in few of the cauponas.

Bread making was an issue in the town. In general, bakers were not allowed to bake bread in the town because of the fire risk from the ovens but there were a few licensed premises. The oven is on the right of the picture above plus

a couple of mills where corn was ground. The mill was divided into two parts. The bottom half was cone shaped. The top half of the mill rotated by means of an attached wooden frame.

Corn was poured into the top of the mill and either a blindfolded donkey or a slave(s) would turn the top half of the mill around. By turning the top half of the mill the corn was ground into flour and was collected in a trough at the bottom of the mill. Mill making was a skilled art because of the hardness of the millstone and the need to get a good fit between the two parts.

Off the via dell’ Abbondanza is the house of Octavius 4th and the original door has been reconstructed by pumping Plaster of Paris into the cavity left within the pumice as the wooden door decayed.

One of the original lead door hinges remains.

This house was a cool house because of the way water flowed through the garden. To one side is a grotto and either side of it are two rather nice frescoes showing mythological scenes:


Narcissus	Pyramus and Thisbe

One of the side rooms has a fourth style fresco. An explanation of the four different style can be found here.

Politicians the world over have ways of getting around minor rules which get in the way. One of these (from a Roman perspective) is that freedmen (those previously slaves) were not allowed to be elected to certain public offices. However their sons were allowed to occupy an office because they were full Roman citizens.

Over the doorway leading into the Temple of Isis is an inscription:

N POPIDIVS N F CELSINVS | AEDEM ISIDIS TERRAE MOTV CONLAPSAM | A FVNDAMENTO P(ecunia) S(ua) RESTITVIT. HVNC DECVRIONES OB LIBERALITATEM | CVM ESSET ANNORVM SEX ORDINI SVO GRATIS ADLEGERVNT.

which translates as:

Numerius Popidius Celsinus, son of Numerius, restored the Temple of Isis from the ground up, after it had been totally destroyed by an earthquake. The Town Council, co-opted him into their assembly when he was only six years old, (and) without charge, in consideration of his generosity.

So although the wealthy father cannot be a member of the Town Council, his six year old son can and he gets chosen (but no doubt his father was there to advise him and attend the late night meetings on his behalf!)

The forum is big and impressive but little remains of the original structure. You can easily imagine what Pompeians thought when they stood there and watched Vesuvius in the distance working up to the eruption. On one side is a statue of Euachia the Priestess who had an interesting history – follow the link to read it. It is not very often that women get their own alcove for a statue.

Further evidence of the lack of care the authorities are taking over the remains found around the site exists in the

alcoves around the forum. Amphora are stacked in a cage,

some of the casts of bodies found on site are in rather old

glass cases, others are not – the above is a very famous cast of a boy trying to shield himself from the ash.

Some of the original walls exist around the site. This section at the Vesuvian Gate shows damage to the walls from the ballista of Sulla who besieged the city in 89BC.

These pictures (above and below) show some of the

marks made on the wall stones when they were carved / cut by slaves in the nearby quarry.

Outside but immediately adjacent to the walls is a street of tombs

which usually were built before death, presumably so the intended occupant could ensure they were sufficiently grand.

The Villa of the Mysteries is a large villa outside of the city but close to where the shore was in AD79.

It is very famous because of its size and what it tells us about Roman life and also for what we are left puzzled about. The walls have a number of holes in them caused by the robbers who dug down into the site in order to find valuables after the eruption.

Hence the villa was empty when it was fully excavated. One of the original doors was reconstructed by filling the hole left behind in the ash with plaster of paris.

The main attraction on the site is one room where the walls are covered with the most beautiful frescoes.

No-one knows exactly what the frescoes show – hence the mystery. One interpretation (and better pictures because we were not allowed to take flash photos) can be found here – it makes interesting reading.

We saw a lot more but there is a limit as to what you can cover in a blog. A very good site about Pompeii can be found here.