Pompeii Scavi

The sunlit morning results in a quick change of plans, and thus a day spent walking the ancient ruins of Pompeii, before the rendezvous at Bellini.

Enormous is the only word to describe the sheer size of the site, and the amount of wandering to be done on the ancient Roman streets in the shadow of grand Vesuvius.

Often in these and other travels, there is that sense of insignificance (mostly welcome), as traveling rapidly provides most of all a blunt and constant reminder of the sheer amount of people there are occupying the planet, going about their daily lives, well, every day. Pompeii is one of the few times in which the true (potential?) insignificance of the entire species hit home so forcefully. Which seems a foolish thing to think and write, but so it was.

Put another way, Pompeii certainly ranks with other elements (in art or otherwise) that must be experienced rather than related. I have been speaking too much French this week, and using the word "hallucinant" a bit much, but it is a sentiment that starts to get close.

Anyhow, deep musings were quickly replaced by the meeting up with Stransky at the appointed hour at the appointed place. "Et ca commence." A walk along the port with its castles and squares and balconies provides much more of a flavour of what Goethe was talking about below, and an aspect of the city that well counterbalances the graffiti and general seediness.

Ate supper at Brandi, where supposedly the Margherita version of the pizza was invented - paid unknowingly extra for the bread, but such can be forgiven when the pictures of Pavarotti in the same establishment are noticed. Followed that with a ridiculous cab ride back to Napoli Centrali, complete with singing Italian cab driver, that got us to the Circumvesuviana just in time. The Limoncello bottle from Amalfi proved ideal for the hour long metro, and in such hours, it is all too easy to replace any brooding thoughts on mortality with simple thanks at the opportunity for such enjoyable and spontaneous merriment, achieved so cheaply and easily on the road in good company.

A sample line of conversation: "Damn the Euro. You know, people in Italy were more romantic when they were on the Lira. Seriously." It is the sincerity in which that last word "seriously" gets uttered that makes such moments linger and remain worth recording. It can capture the essence of things just so.

Oh Amalfi, and your rampant "Beautyness". Why must you tease me so?