It would have been easy to dismiss Sorrento, Italy as just another attractive but over-touristy town. It offers the obligatory horse-drawn carriage rides, as well as a little white train that carries visitors from the upper level of town down to the beaches and marinas. Sidewalk cafes dot pretty piazzas that pop up around every … Read more
After a week spent traveling around the Bay of Naples, I was still somewhat baffled by what I had seen at Pompeii, Herculaneum, and the Villa di Poppaea Sabina at Oplontis. To visit all these sites I’d ridden the Circumvesuviana, a privately owned train that runs around the base of Mount Vesuvius. At each, the … Read more
On a fine afternoon in 1752, word reached King Charles III of Bourbon that his royal archeologist, Karl Weber, had discovered a treasure trove at Herculaneum. Sometime earlier, his excavation tunnels had brought to light the luxurious residence that would later be dubbed the Villa of the Papyri, however on that particular day his tunnels … Read more
My first view of the ruins of Pompeii did not inspire awe or wonderment. Instead, and quite unexpectedly, I was perplexed. A few days earlier I had visited Herculaneum, the ancient Roman ruins that lay at the bottom of a 60-foot deep excavated pit. The same eruption of Mount Vesuvius that buried Herculaneum in A.D. … Read more
Walking through the Italian town of Torre Annunziata, one would never suspect that some of the most luxurious villas of the Roman Empire lie buried some 25 feet beneath its streets. The only indication that earlier structures existed comes from a notation on the Tabula Peutingeriana, a twelfth-century copy of an ancient map of the … Read more
