Well, I'm back, alive and well with about 125 pictures. Digital cameras are WONDERFUL, you can shoot all of the pics that you want and only print the good ones. You don't have to pay to develop the bad ones.
Switzerland was really neat. We got there on Thursday, 6/22/06, after a red-eye flight from Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, DC. We took a train from Zurich to Rorschach and went to our hotel, where we slept for about 4-5 hours. We were awakened by the most Gor-awful din of honking horns. It turned out that the Italians had just won one of their playoff games for the World Cup and all of the Italians in town were celebrating. All in all, we had a very pleasant visit in Rorschach and I even got to visit with a virtual reiend from across the border, in Austria. He picked me up and took me back to Bregenz in Austria. There, we had linch in a castle on a peak overlooking the city, which had once been the Roman port of Brigantium. I'll try to post a picture of me in front of the castle.
On Monday, 6/29/06, we flew down to Napoli by way of Milano, that Aeritalia hub. Our hotel was in the modern town of Pompei, spelt with one "i". The hotel was very modern, complete with air-conditioning, a real blessing in the heat down there. We went up to Vesuvius the first day. I was thinking that it wasn't so impressive until I realized that I was tanding in the caldera for the 79CE eruption that had buried Pompeii and Herculaneum. That caldera is MOST impressive for something some 2000 years old. The next day, we went to the Ruins and they are everything that I had expected and more. I was in 7th Heaven! I got lots of pictures of things that don't usually get photographed, such as the ceiling of the Stabian Baths, showing some really fascinating cement work. But Andrew was correct, it was damned hot and I was ever so glad to have a quart of water with me. On Wednesday, we went in to Napoli to the Archaeological Museum to see the painings and the mosaics that had been brought there from Pompeii and Herculaneum to preserve them. They are, in a word, stunning. If you go there, you must see them.
We also went to a bank to cash somne Trevellers Checks, as the banks gave the best exchange rates. But to get into one, you must firs empty out your pockets of all metal and leave it and any packs in a locker to which you have a key, rather like a free version of a bus depot locker. You then go into an airlock like device where the bank staff can check you out before they will let you into the bank proper. Once in, they were most helpful, but the security made US airports look lax in comparison. When I asked the folks at our hotel why this was so, they said that there had been just too many bank robberies with the Mafia types coming in and spraying everyone with submachinegun fire, so they now severely control who can enter.
On Friday, we went to Ercolano, modern Herculaneum, to see those ruins. Unlike Pompeii, they were wiped out by a pyroclastic flow and then swamped in a sea of mud and wet ash as opposed to Pompeii, which was covered over in dry grit and ash. The difference to the residents was a quick death by incineration (pyroclastic flows reach 800 degrees to 1200 degrees Fahrenheit) as opposed to slow suffocation in Pompeii. But the flow did preserve the buildings better and they were marvelous to see. Herculaneum was a town for the wealthy, rather like Beverly Hills or Hyannisport, as opposed to the grubby economic town of Pompeii, which is why Pompeii is so much more interesting.
Oh, and the very best pizzas that I have ever encountered were in Pompei.
