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Dear
Family,
This is the last postcard I will be writing during this trip.
I write these not as Travel Guides, but to express my thoughts
about the places I visited based on its geographic, historic and
cultural background. I think just detailed description of famous
buildings or sights will be so boring. Also
I am writing these letters from the
boat. Time is limited but more importantly the Internet access
is very expensive (U.S. $0.35/minute). So, I am writing these as
fast as my little right index finger is allowing me to
type, and sending away.
Anyway, after leaving Athens we sailed through the Mediterranean
for about 36 hours before reaching the next port of call in
Italy, Napoli (also called Naples). Napoli is the third
largest city in Italy after Milano (Milan) and Roma (Roma).
It is also Italy's third largest port.
After visiting Turkey, Greece, Italy, France and Spain, it
occurred to me and also to Anjali that many of the Mediterranean
cities in all these countries have been occupied and reoccupied
by Greeks, Romans, Ottomans (Turks), and then France and the
Moors (from Morocco) at various times, starting some times
before Christ. The invaders left lasting influence and
signs of their culture in all these cities.
The main attraction at Napoli was the ancient city of Pompeii.
This was really a moving experience. Some of you may have read
the book "Last Days of Pompeii" or seen the movie
version of it. Pompeii was a thriving and bustling modern
city of 18,000 people (Romans) next to the beautiful Vesuvius
Mountain 2,000 years ago. Then all of a sudden without any
warning, on 24th August 79 AD at about 1 P.M., the mighty
Vesuvius erupted in a fury. It rained volcanic ashes and
volcanic pebbles for three continuous days burring the city (and
two other smaller cities nearby) completely under 24 feet of
debris. Whole city with all the people simply vanished.
Nothing was done for about 1,800 years and then they started to
excavate the city, and the excavation is still going on.
Only half of the city has been excavated so far. The
Vesuvius became absolutely calm after that eruption and has
erupted only once since (a small one) in the 1700's. The
height of the volcano before the eruption in 79 AD was about
7,000 feet, now it is only 4,000 feet, half of
its original size.
By the way, Pompeii was destroyed badly by a devastating
earthquake (62 AD), only 17 years before the eruption of
Vesuvius. The city was completely restored in those 17
years, only to be buried by the devastating volcanic activities
in 79 A.D. Scientists now believe that earthquake
was the premonitory sign of an impending volcanic eruption.
Here is the most interesting part about the eruption.
Since the eruption came all of a sudden without any warning, the
ashes covered every thing and "froze" the city just as
it was at the moment of the eruption. Of course, most of
the roofs and the upper stories collapsed by the weight of the
ashes, but much of the city was actually protected by the ashes.
When they did start to excavate about 200 years ago, they found
a city frozen in time, from 2,000 years ago. One could
make out every details of the life style of the Romans at that
time. It was a most astonishing archeological discovery.
By the way, (just as a little distraction), some thing at
Istanbul
fascinated me; Pompeii reminded me of that. I think I did
not tell you in detail about it. This is about the two
churches/mosques there. One of them is particularly
noteworthy called the Chora Church/Mosque. These churches
were built at the beginning of the last millennium (About 800
years ago). The architecture is beautiful but more
importantly inside this church the walls had magnificent mosaic
(painting with small colored stones) and frescos (colored
paintings) of events from the Bible. The whole life of
Jesus was beautifully painted on the walls inside the
church. When the Ottomans took over the country around
1300 AD, they did not destroy these buildings but modified them and
converted them into mosques. They built minarets around
them. However, they could not have paintings of human or
any living object onside the mosque (Muslim law). So, what
they did was, they put plaster over those magnificent paintings
to cover them up!
And then when Turkey became a secular country in nineteen
thirties, these mosques were converted back into museums. They
carefully pealed the plasters of walls and ceilings, and lo and behold much of those original
paintings and mosaics came back to life again. In other
words, those plasters actually protected the paintings for
400-500 years. The reason I am mentioning
this, is that same thing happened in Pompeii; the volcanic ashes
protected the remains of the city including many beautiful
paintings, for 2,000 years.
I should not give too much detailed description of the city as
was
discovered; it will take much of your time to read, although it
is so
fascinating. I will only describe in brief, a few things.
This was a
thoroughly modern city 2,000 years ago, even by today's
standards. The city was a planned one with straight wide
intersecting streets. Roads were built with stones and
each road (even the smaller ones) had pavements (foot paths) for
the pedestrians on both sides, which were raised about two feet
above the street level (to protect against rain water).
All streets were in a modern grid system. The main road
was about a mile long and
wide enough for two large chariots to pass side by side.
Even in many older cities in the USA (less than 100-200 years
old) today the streets are not straight but are winding and
buildings are haphazardly built.
All houses were built with limestones, so these stood the time
well. They had two or three story buildings. There are
shops, restaurants both for fast food (really!) and for regular
meals, (the raised stoves for cooking looked so modern),
amphitheater, large stadium (Greek design) for 10,000 people.
This area and the amphitheater were later converted into a
gladiator-training center (remember "Spartacus"?).
Outside the stadium there is
a huge hall for people to gather and talk, bakery with large
stone ovens, public baths and public toilets, market places.
The public places, like shops, restaurants, auditoriums had
sliding doors at the entrance (we could see grooves on stone for
the wooden sliding doors).
We went into a few private homes. Each house had a large
atrium (entry hall) with a water reservoir to collect rain water
(the roof was designed to allow the rain water to flow into the
reservoir), a beautifully decorated reception room (Living Room,
Drawing Room), kitchen, dinning room, bedrooms, garden in the
backyard and even with a swimming pool made of stone. The
floors have beautiful mosaic with small colored stones.
Mosaic floors are also in many public buildings. The walls
of these rooms, especially the reception room were skillfully
decorated with vivid multicolored paintings of exquisite skill
depicting various activities like hunting or simple scenery.
The colors and the paintings are still so clear and brilliant.
I remember the Ajanta paintings are so
faded, but these painting are still clear (because these were
protected by the ashes). In one house, they believe
that was a brothel; there are colorful paintings of men and
women in various erotic positions. The reason I mention
this to you is that I always thought the erotic sculptures at
Khajuraho and Konarak were unique, but these Pompeii paintings
were done probably about thousand years before Khajuraho.
They also found food (grains, chicken and other meat) in storage
in the kitchen. The public bath is very impressive and is well
preserved. It is a huge complex, with waiting room with
about twenty seating places (made of stone) with high ceiling
and decorated walls, changing room with storage holes in the
wall, a gymnasium, steam room where steam would be flowing
through the hollow walls and ceiling with holes in them, (the
steam was produced by boiling water and then passing it through
pipes inside the walls), there is a room for cold water bath (a
swimming pool type), a room for warm water bath (like a sauna).
Really astonishing. Remember that the Romans (and the
Greeks) had a lot of slaves to work for them.
The public toilet was very large, interesting and well designed.
There are two doors to get in (not in straight line to each
other), so that inside was not visible from the street any time.
There are about 10 stalls in a circular toilet room with a
drain flowing underneath. The Romans obviously enjoyed
their daily 'toilet activities' along with their friends and in
a communal fashion. That was probably the time for them to
gossip and chat. I thought these public toilets of
2,000 years ago are better planned and maintained than the
public toilets in India today.
There are election slogans written (graffiti) on the city walls.
Reminded me of Calcutta. Obviously the democracy and
voting was very much alive then. Politicians used to
give
"gifts" to the city, like
constructing a public bath, etc, BEFORE the election. Not
just empty promises like modern day politicians do.
So
far, no signs, or relics of Christianity have been discovered
any where in the city. In other words, by 79 AD
Christianity did not arrive in Pompeii.
Obviously, all people and animals died almost instantly. Most of them, very likely
died because of the toxic volcanic fumes, some by asphyxiation.
By a modern method scientists recreated and made plaster casts
(not mommies) of these dead bodies, human, dogs, pigs, etc in
the position they died. These figures are really moving. One
pregnant woman was lying, and boy sitting and covering his face
with both hands, a dog in an agonizing position, and like that.
There are hundreds of these.
I could keep on talking about the city but you probably do not
have that much time to read.
Next day we reached another Italian city called Livorno.
Close to it is the famous city of Pisa (famous for the Leaning
Tower and the place where Galileo, the famous astronomer and
mathematician, worked and died in prison). Remember Galileo
observed the movements of a large brass lamp inside the
cathedral (next to the tower) moving like pendulum and thus
calculated the movement of the earth. The lamp
(chandelier) is still there hanging at the same spot.
One point about the tower is that, this was not intentionally
built to lean. It was designed to be straight, built as a
cylindrical bell tower (like a minaret of a mosque, an obvious
Muslim influence) for the cathedral next to it. But
because of the soft soil, it started to lean after about one
fourth (or may be a little
more) was built. Building was stopped for many years and later;
the rest of it was completed with a remedial design. So, the
lower part of the tower is leaned but the upper part is
straight. More recently the tower has been
reinforced (not visible) by modern methods. Going up on
the tower is allowed now but is restricted.
We were supposed to stop at Monte Carlo (Monaco) next, but
because of the weather condition (high wind) we stopped at
Cannes, France. This city is part of the French Riviera
but is more famous for its annual Film Festivals. I believe this
is where Satyajit Ray got his award for "Pather Panchali"
. This year
Aishwarya Rai, the former Miss World and present day
Hindi movie actress, was one of the jurors at the Cannes film
festival. We had a chance to drive to Nice, the
other and more famous beach city in the French Riviera.
Hundreds of sunbathers lying happily on rough rocky beaches like
sardines in a can.
Our last stop was at Barcelona, Spain. A very European
city with beautiful well preserved buildings. Reminded me of
Paris. Do you know that at Barcelona and in the
surrounding area, people have a different language (Catalonian)
and a different culture than the rest
of Spain? They are proud of the difference. Its unique and
famous cathedral with multiple steeples is still under
construction. Barcelona has become more famous because of
the 1992 summer Olympics that was held here. The Olympics
definitely changed the face of the city. We were shown
newer buildings, hotels, roads, parks, apartment buildings,
walkways, stadiums etc.,
which were built in places where there were slums and run-down
buildings before. Now these places look so beautiful.
The Mediterranean Sea remained calm and deep blue for us most of
the time except when approaching Monte Carlo. The
cities were unusually hot this year.
I think I better stop here. Thank you for having the
patience to read these postcards. On the other hand, if
you have missed any of my last three postcards, and want a copy,
I can send you one.
So long.
Love.
Sujit
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