The Purple Penguin

Up and out early to get to the Pompeii Santuario station for the train to Ercolano. Definitely not as nice as the main station and train to Naples. The trains were all running late and there was very little information available, but we got our train and headed off to Ercolano Scavi. The guidebooks all say this is an easy walk to the ruins, but what they don’t mention is it is steeply down hill. And by steeply I mean use walking sticks to help you down steep. I didn’t realise I’d be climbing Vesuvius! And mentioning the volcano, it seemed much much closer at Ercolano than it did at Pompeii.

Got to the site and again no queues for tickets. Got tickets, got our guidebooks and map. When we got to the entrance we were told we had to carry bags on our front, so we decided to leave them in the lockers provided (keys from the info desk and you return the key before leaving; lockers are free). I’d recommend leaving bags there as it’s much easier to get around!

Quite a few places in Herculaneum were closed. It’s also slighly more difficult to get around – though the entrance is now step free it’s much much lower than the modern ground level. The streets are much more steep and there aren’t the stepping stones to cross, but there are steps down every now and again. It was interesting to see the difference between Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Herculaneum has a walkway around a good bit of the site up at modern ground level and this is how you start the tour. It gives an excellent overview of the site. We started with the boat pavilion where the remains of the boat found on the beach alongside other objects found nearby are displayed and then the Antiquarium, museum of objects found in Herculaneum. Then down to the site. Again several of the places were closed and being worked on so we didn’t get to see everything. Also the wait of the mud and lava has warped the floors so the mosaics are warped, but still lovely. The layout is also harder to decipher due to how the early archaelogy was done. So while it is an outstanding site for archealogy it is much less clear than Pompeii for the general tourist. It also feels much more like visiting a ruin. Having said that, the restoration of the beach area and vaults is very moving as the skeletons have been left in place. Though there are a lot of steps down to the beach (and very steep slope down to those steps!)

There were a couple of school groups, as usual, but due to the size of the site (quite small) they were more difficult to avoid. But we were glad we went as the differences were interesting. After seeing everything that was open we headed up and had our picnic lunch at the entrance before heading back up the very steep road to the station (did I mention this was steep? Like climbing a mountain steep?)

At the Ercolano station there was no information at all. Just pure guesswork. But we ended up on the correct train, somehow, and back at Pompeii Santuario (saw lots of orange trees on the ride). Staggered back to the hotel, made reservations for the restaurant and then staggered off to rest.

Last dinner and even though we had three meals at this one place, it didn’t feel boring or that we needed to do the same thing. Our drink order however was the same – Joe had a local draft beer and I had a g&t made with Seville orange gin and Fever Tree tonic.