In the Shadow of a Volcano, Part 2

Thursday August 30, 2012 – SORRENTO, ITALY

This morning brought me to the shadow of another Italian volcano: Vesuvius.  Quite literally, in fact.  Instead of spending the day in Sorrento and on the Amalfi Coast, I raced up from the port to the train station and caught the Circumvesuviana train to Naples.  While this is actually my third visit to the area, I had yet to visit the Archeological Museum in Naples.  This has a lot to do with the fact that Naples is kind of a scary city, but this museum houses the vast majority of the Pompeii and Herculaneum frescoes and mosaics.

Going to see the mosaics is definitely worth it.  They are some of the best preserved I’ve ever seen.  Most significantly, the Museum (housed in an old Bourbon Palace) features “The Secret Room” which is 100% Ancient Roman erotica. It used to be that you needed special permission from the king to see the room, but now it’s included with admission.  The Museum also houses the Farnese marbles, which are really quite spectacular.

That’s my day.  I wandered around Sorrento for a bit, but I do much since I didn’t get back until about 3 PM because I caught the slow train by accident.  The two Circumvesuviana trains aren’t that different; the DD will get you to Naples in about 50 minutes while the D train will get you there in 80.  It makes a difference, but not a significant one.

The Amalfi Coast and the coastline from Sorrento to Naples combined form the mythic homes of three of the best-known Odysseus myths: Circe, The Cyclops, and The Sirens.  Well, maybe the Cyclops.  It all depends on how you interpret things.  Some scholars think that the Cyclops were metaphors for the volcanoes of this area; an erupting volcano could easily be called an injured, one-eyed giant.  I don’t know how seriously I take that theory.  Personally, I think it’s more likely that the ancient peoples of the area dug up the scull of a dwarf elephant - which kind of looks like it has one eye - and decided that it belonged to an extinct race of one-eyed giants.  

That, by the way, is the other story on the Cyclops.  A little south, you can find the islands of the Sirens.  What’s cool about this area is that the rocks actually sing when the wind blows through them right, so you can totally see how a bunch of tired sailors might be attracted to the song thinking that it belonged to females.  You can also see the sharp pointy rocks that would have spelled their demise.  A little north, you can find the spot that, based on some creative cartography and study of the Odyssey, scholars figure Circe would have lived.  She’s the lady who tricked Odysseus’s men into eating her food and drinking her wine so that she could turn them into pigs for eating with poor manners after being at sea in a boat with only dudes for years.  Odysseus, with the help of a magic potion, resists her charms, sleeps with her, and convinces her to turn his men back into men.  And she does.

That essentially ends my Odyssey stories.  Tomorrow, I’ll head to Civitavecchia, the port associated with Rome.