Pompeii Buried Again

I started the day with a phone call to my daughter Cushla for her birthday before catching a taxi to the station to board the train to Salerno. I've already mentioned that Edward took the ferry from Palermo to Naples and he was irritated on departing Sicily when we for two mortal hours were, without distinction-first class, second class, and deck passengers,some seventy or eighty in all-kept standing, indiscriminately mingled together, upon the deck, broiling under the hot sun, while a most vexatiously slow and deliberate examination of our passports, and muster of our persons, was gone through. 

This of course was prior to the unification of Italy whereas Sicily is now part of the Italian nation so no such bothersome formalities have to be endured. We were travelling by train and that involved an interesting process whereby you board the train in Messina and then the whole train is shunted in several pieces onto the ferry and off again in Villa San Giovanni, on the mainland. Train passengers can either remain in the train in the hold or go up into the ferry saloon for the hour long journey across the Straits of Messina.

Colossal golden statue of Madonna erected by Mussolini at the entrance to Messina harbour. Must've been a helpful sighting point for Allied bombers in the war. 

On his arrival in Messina, Edward had notice that they had passed the once dreaded Charybdis, which, whatever were its former terrors, appears nothing very formidable now. Charybdis was a spirit that lurked under the rocks on the Messina side of the Straits (while Scylla lived on the mainland side) and sucked Odysseus's ship into a whirlpool. It now means something disastrous that sucks you in slowly-ultimately a good description of the worlds, and our, experience with Covid19. The waters of the Straits definitely show turbulence and you wouldn't want to try and swim in it, but it must have been a much rougher day when Odysseus visited if it could suck a vessel of any size in.

Messina through a dirty ferry window, showing the noticeable, but not excessive surface turbulence of the water. 

Once on the mainland the train traveled along a coast similar to Sicily's although with perhaps even steeper hills running down to the water. Almost every square metre of land has been terraced into growing space and like Sicily there are spectacular road bridges carrying the highway above the train. After a while the train cuts inland across a wide plain, followed by a series of rolling hills. Oranges and olives remain major crops and it's hard to believe there are enough people in the world to consume all that they grow. As you head further north there is an increasing number of plastic crop houses growing who knows what vegetables. I'm guessing tomatoes in summer.

Later the train comes back to the coast, where there are what appear to be numerous mothballed beach resorts, before heading inland again through a wide forested river valley. As you approach Salerno the horticulture becomes increasingly intensive and there are also some reasonably large industrial operations of various kinds.

We arrived in Salerno in the mid afternoon. Unlike most of the places we've been to, Salerno had a prominent Tourist Info office on the station forecourt so I called in to pick up a map of town, only to be informed by the desk guy that as of today, the shutdown that previously applied only to some of the northern provinces, was now extended to the whole country. That meant that all museums and tourist attractions, were now shut. This was  particularly upsetting news in that the one thing I had most been looking forward to on this trip was Pompeii. Apart from it being on Edward's itinerary, I had visited Pompeii as a 6 year old on our way to live in Australia. It had had a particular impact on me and was one of my most vivid childhood memories so I was really keen to go back. This was now not going to be possible.

Edward had planned to make a trip to Salerno and Paestum, Greek ruins to the south, but he cancelled those plans because the slumbering fires of Vesuvius had once more broken forth, and keen adventure tourist that he was, he decided to stay and make another trip up the mountain instead. For our part, we had intended to visit Paestum and then travel along the Amalfi coast to Sorrento, vist Capri from there and then go to Pompeii and Naples. However, like Edward our plans were now thwarted by an eruption of a different kind.