Never trust a mountain (Italy part 2)

 Italians looooove their statues. Take this beauty in Naples.

Most people think it's Christopher Columbus pointing west.

It actually isn't.  If you read the inscriptions 

you'll find that the statue is of Chris's dad.  It says 

"You're 18a yearsa old, alla you do is sit arounada  house playing video gamesah.  Getta the hell outta my house ana get a job".

Recognize  this mountain?

OK, that would be a bit of a stretch. It's famous, but not as iconic as this one.

Mt Fuji

This is Mt. Vesuvius. Or rather, what's left of it. In 79 A.D. it blew up with one helluva bang. A truly, epic, massive bang in fact. It puked up ash, pumice, and fumes at the rate of 1,500,000 tons per second. At the time, there were 16,000 poor bastards living down slope.  They were all caught (except for a guy named Pliny the Younger) by one of the largest pyroclastic flows in recorded history. Pliny was on the outskirts of the death zone. Pliny later wrote a couple letters to the historian-Tacitus. The first letter began with "Holy shit Tacky, you won't believe what happened today". In case you're wondering, Pliny the Elder was an admiral in the Roman fleet.  Elder also got snuffed. Pyroclastic flows are an especially nasty mixture of hot gases and assorted ash that spread out down the mountain at up to 450 miles per hour.  Temperatures of over 1,000 degrees are common. They're killers and they happen quickly.

Pyroclastic flows sweep down the flanks of Mayon Volcano, Philippines, in 1984

Most of us remember that the city of Pompeii was nicely preserved by the eruption. It wasn't, however, the only hapless victim. Herculaneum also got nailed. Pompeii stayed buried and forgotten for almost 1,700 years until in 1748 a Spanish engineer happened across the ruins. What makes Pompeii so interesting is that the volcano killed everyone very quickly.Then the ash buried and preserved the scene.  It is a fascinating snapshot of city life roughly around the time of Christ. 

The Italians have been carefully digging out Pompeii for over 250 years. Recently, however, they've stopped.  With good reason. Right now 2/3 of Pompeii has been exposed. Exposure to air, pollution, weather, tourist hands... has taken a toll. 2 1/2 million people a year visit Pompeii.

The Italians have done a terrific job exposing the ruins.  Too good in fact.  Most tours of Pompeii last a couple hours.  To really see the place would take a couple weeks.  With my abbreviated attention span - 2 hours was enough. I found a few mysteries (and solved a couple).  First up - where'd everybody go? The casts of the dead people all over the streets are gone. Now you only find them behind glass.

What happened to the rest of them?  Did the British steal them like they did all the Egyptian mummies?

What did people smell like in those times?  Probably not good, but not as bad they could have. The Romans liked their baths.

Did they have bars?  Ohhhh yeeaaahh. Quite a few of them.

wine storage

missing tables and chairs

What about hookers?  Lots of them - institutionalized, just like Nevada.

Specialty of the house - (pictorial for the illiterate)

Brothel accommodations (presumably there was a mattress on top of the stone "bed")

Did the brothels advertise? Yup.  Right in the street.

Hint, look closely at the stone.  Points to the right, so to speak.

How did they tell time?  Ye old sundial.

How did they get around the city?  Chariots.  Look at the street for the ruts worn in the stone.

What about entertainment?  Have an amphitheater.

I saved the best for the last two mysteries.  How was the place built?  Simple.  Pompeii was built out of stone Lego's. I kid you not.  Below is a shot of the main bank - using Zeus for a logo.

If you go behind the bank and check out how all the columns were built (by looking at the ones that fell down) - look what you find.

I know a Lego when I see one.  God knows I've stepped on enough of the goddamn things barefoot in the dark when the kids were little.

Last, but not least - would Pompeii have survived for long if Vesuvius hadn't gone kablooey? Probably not.  Take a close look at the water system.  Roman engineers were the best in the world for plumbing.  Their only problem was that they didn't know diddly squat about metallurgy. 

Communal water fountain

Supplied by this for piping

Yep, that's lead pipe they used.  Not good if you want to live past 20.

So, is the danger of Vesuvius over? After all, it blew up almost 2 millennial ago.  No, in fact Mt Vesuvius is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world.  3,000,000 people are now living in the cone of destruction - that includes Naples. Vesuvius continues to shake rattle and roll.  In 1944 the crater suffered a landslide so large that it sent up a bloom of ash and scared the crap out of all the Italians that were already scared of the Allies.

Good thing us Americans are so much smarter than the Italians. Really?      Does this mountain look familiar?

"Mount Rainier 5917s" by Walter Siegmund (talk) - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Rainier_5917s.JPG#mediaviewer/File:Mount_Rainier_5917s.JPG

 This is Mt. Rainier, in Washington. Mt. Rainier is listed right next to Vesuvius as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world.  A major eruption would trash most of Seattle and Tacoma.

Home of da Gawdfatha (part 1)

Sicily is as good a place as any to start talking about Italy. First of all - where is it? (yes, I know, I start every blog this way.  The problem is, I'm a total geomoron - I'm  always lost). Think of it like this: if the tip of the Italian "boot" was to kick something in the ass - it would be Sicily.

Messina Italy (our first Sicilian port of call) is just so quintessentially Italian.  Take a look at the approach (from the North).

One side is Sicily and the other is Italy.  Notice anything missing?   No?  What about a bridge? This is the Messina Straits (or Straits of Messina not Logins and Messina). It's not that wide. 2 miles, to be exact. Nope, no bridge.  No tunnel either. So how do you get from one side to the other?

Ferryboats.  Lots of them, and that's what makes the whole thing so Italian. 

smuggler

The ferryboat business has been flourishing for years. Any business that makes money and has been around for a long time has very likely been infiltrated by "special gentlemen". Read - mafia.  I can't prove it, but it stands to reason why the Italian government keeps considering a Messina bridge, but just never gets around to actually building one.

Latest proposed bridge

They've been toying with various schemes since the 1960's. The latest bridge plan would have cost $6B euros and was cancelled in 2013.  What about a tunnel? 

Up until 1994 there were, however, power lines crossing the straits.

Sicilian side 

This are the Messina Strait Pylons that held up the wires. The pylons were a nice piece of engineering in 1954. These things are taller than the pictures gives them credit - 761 feet 

De odder side

 According to Wikipedia After their completion, the oscillation of the structures and their maximum deflections were determined in a very unusual manner: engineers mounted three rockets with a thrust of 9800 kilonewtons on top of the pylons and ignited them  The lines carried 220,000 volts (330 mega watts) of power from the mainland.  In 1993 the wires had reached their capacity and a submarine cable replaced them. Today the pylons have been declared national monuments and are used for high distance rescue training. If you want to have a free stress test (and you're not afraid of heights) since 2006 the Italians have let any hammerhead who wants to - climb them  Be prepared for 1,250 steps and no snack stand at the top. 

The entrance to Messina showcases the Italian love for statues.

The switch for the lights you see around the base of the statue is supposedly in the Vatican (wonder if the electric bill goes to the pope?). E Pluribus Unum (or whatever the hell the inscription is) translates to  “We bless you and your city” and it is a quote from a letter the Virgin Mary sent to the population of Messina in the year 42. Legend has it that the Apostle Paul came to Messina around this time to convert the Sicilians to Christianity."  Who knows? The history of Messina is extremely violent, starting in 800 BC when it was Greek.  I won't bore you with the long sordid history of Messina except to say that Messina is considered to be the European entry point for the bacterium yersinia pestis (otherwise known as Black Death, or The Plague). Lovely....

Of course, what harbor would be without a fort to guard it?

A short (and very scenic ) drive from the harbor

will take you to the charming little town of Savoca. These roads are so twisty and demanding that you finally begin to understand why Ferrari and Lamborghini were inspired by Italians.  Savoca would be a sleepy little backwater town if it wasn't for this guy.

Here's a picture of him

This is, of course, Francis Ford Coppola, Oscar winning director of The Godfather. In G1 Michael has to flee to Italy to escape the heat for whacking a corrupt police captain and Don Sollozo (the ones who tried to hit Don Corleone -if you've never seen the Godfather here's the plot- if your first name is Don, everyone will eventually try to kill you. Guys named Ralph, Bob, Peter, Poindexter, etc. seem to make out OK). While the movie depicts him as being in Corleone, it was actually filmed in Savoca. You can see why Coppola did this.  Don Corleone is a much more poetic name than Don Savoca (or Don Bologna, or Don Naples, or Don Spaghetti).

This is the famous bar - Bar Vitelli, where Michael hung out and scared all the locals.

"Hey, wassamatta you, eh?"

This is what it looks like today

Here's me right next to the famous table (I didn't have any beefs with anyone so I didn't shoot anybody)

They've let the flowers grow up a bit, other than that, it's exactly the same as it's always been. Same bead curtains (but, fortunately, the bathroom got modernized). 

(This is the inside of the bar, not the bathroom)

In the bar they have pictures from the movie

The road next to the bar got paved and they added a few streetlights

In the movie, Michael (Al Pacino) falls in love with the local hot babe - Apollonia (Simonetta Stephanelli).

They get married in this church (in the movie you don't see it much).  Its not far from the bar.

The interior of the church is lovely

But, as usual, I had more appreciation for the old, beautifully built wooden lift they use to dust statues and change light bulbs.

The surrounding scenery is quite interesting.

Some homes have quaint ruins next to them

Talk about a renovation nightmare!  I'm not sure what the local building laws are. I don't know if you can just bulldoze the wreckage and start again (I doubt it). They have some cool drain spouts on some though.

As usual, you can always find ridiculous souvenirs if you want.

Somehow, wearing a Godfather T-shirt in the middle of Sicily didn't seem like a bright idea

No thanks.

Actually did a shot of this stuff

Awful, tasted like Pine-Sol smells like .  

In the end I followed this guy back to the bus.