Mt Vesuvius - the Most Dangerous Volcano On Earth

After visiting Pompeii, we took our lives in our own hands and took the ridiculous trek up Mt Vesuvius. It is a crazy drive up the volcano with a short hike at the end to the peak. Driving up a volcano, fighting European tour buses along numerous steep switch backs is quite a silly undertaking.



Unfortunately, by the time we reached the top it was completely clouded in with no visibility. On a clear day you can see the entire town of Naples, the island of Capri and the mountains of Albania.

Mt Vesuvius is considered the most dangerous volcano on Earth. It had a history of erupting about every 40 years, but has not erupted since 1944. It is of course, the volcano that famously buried the town of Pompeii in 79 AD along with 3 other nearby towns. 

Presently there is no red lava to be seen on Mt Vesuvius, but there are many visible petrified flows of hardened black lava to be seen, and the volcano does emit small amounts of steam. In the pictures you can see the petrified lava flows in the valleys. They look like rivers are grey in color.

Pompeii

It's hard to even describe how fascinating Pompeii is. We wish we had a week to spend there, but we are grateful for today. 

In case you aren't aware, Pompeii was a prosperous port town located just outside of Naples. It was rich with merchants and businessmen. It was a popular destination for trade and business dealings, gladiator fights and its notorious red light district. We of course avoided the red light part of town with the kids.


















In the year 79 AD, the town was buried in volcanic ash from the nearby volcano, Mt. Vesuvius. Rather than being blown away, the town was amazingly preserved in the ash. It has since been dug out in a massive archaeological undertaking. It is an archaeological dig site, so you will still see the fencing and graphing of the area in the pictures. You can also see the deadly Mt Vesuvius looming in the background of many of our pictures.

The Roman baths were particularly well preserved.

 Here Atlas holds up the ceiling of the well preserved massage room in the bath house.

The saddest part of Pompeii was seeing the people and animals, frozen in time from the volcano. These were real people and animals, whose burnt bodies left fossil-like imprints in the ground.

It's pretty amazing to walk on streets with grooves worn from chariots from 2000 years ago.

The home of a wealthy merchant

The Court House

The Temple of Venus

A memorial to one a 3 time governor of Pompeii

The Bakery - where 35 loaves of preserved bread were found

Ontranto & The Bones of 813 Christian Martyrs

Ontranto is a coastal town at the bottom of the heel of the boot of Italy. It is amazing how blue and crystal clear the Adriatic Sea is along its coast. Our pictures don't do it justice. 

Saint Peter traveled through Ontranto from Antioch. However, Ontranto is most known for the brutal attack by Turkish Muslim forces from the Ottoman Empire in 1480, where 813 Christian men in the town were rounded up and given the ultimatum to renounce Christ and convert to Islam, or die. They refused and were beheaded on what would become known as the Hill of Martyrs (previously known as the Hill of Minerva). 

The Turks sold the most of the captured women and children from the town into slavery. They took over the town's Cathedral, turning it into a mosque, destroying the Christian images within. 

The Cathedral was reclaimed within the year, and the remains of the 813 martyrs were gathered and brought to the Cathedral to rest. They can be viewed in the Cathedral of Ontranto today, along with the beheading stone that is displayed in the alter. It is a haunting and humbling experience to be in the presence of the remains of so many Christian martyrs, particularly given the numerous cases of Christian martyrs today.

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Martina Franca

Martina Franca is another dreamy white Puglian town set on a hilltop with winding white alleys. The architecture is baroque and begins when entering the city through the arch called the Arco di Sant'Antonio. 

The Basilica di San Martino is the centerpiece of the town. It's possibly one of the most gorgeous basilicas we've ever seen. 

Apparently PJPII loved it as well, as he frequented the city and Basilica during his years as Pope. 

The Italians baffle me. It's 10:00 at night. What in the world are all these people doing out in the town square??!!!

Locorotondo on Easter Day

On Easter Day we visited Locorotondo, a small white city on a hill called the Murge Plateau. It is a beautiful sight from afar. Once inside the city, the streets wind down white roads and alleys. It's known as one of the most beautiful towns in Italy. We would agree.

Throughout the town are various chapels, always open, built around preserving ancient frescoes like the one pictured here.

Locorotondo is a traditional Italian town off the beaten path that follows fascinating Christian traditions, including the hanging lady tradition during Lent. Known as "la Quaremma," which means Lent, puppets looking like an ugly old woman or a witch are hung throughout town. The puppet often holds a spindle and an orange, to represent frugality during Lent. It also often has 7 feathers to represent the 7 weeks of Lent. On Easter the puppets are collected and burned to represent the Resurrection.

Matera - Filming Location of the Passion of the Christ

After Massafra we headed to Matera.  Matera is one of the earliest inhabited cities in the world with human activity dating back over 7000 years to the Palaeolithic Age.  In the 8th century Benedictine and Basilian monks inhabited the city and left an extensive network of churches and the earliest cave paintings from that period. The city is quite amazing and is built on top of naturally excavated caves, called sassi.  

We had a local guide take us around to show us the city. The town is built around a deep ravine, with the most ancient sassi one side, and a "less ancient" town on the other. 

        

Check out the Matera bread! The loaves are huge, and made from the same start as in Roman times. This one is rather small, but we saw some almost 3 feet long.

The ridge line in the picture below is where The Passion of the Christ was filmed back in 2004.

Cave churches everywhere. The picture of the stone seat is from the underground vaults of San Pietro Barisano, where the bodies of dead priests were seated to "drain" or decompose until only bone was left. There were no cemeteries in the cave towns, so they were not buried. You can see the pictured seat is inscribed, and it belonged to someone named Nicholas.

How bout a drink is the Stone Age Bar? It was an actual bar in Matera.