We take it easy this morning, playing some games of Uno and enjoy our breakfast. But at 9, when the sun starts warming the air, the blue sky seduces us to our car, to explore more sites.
We head west of Naples, so we’ll have to circumnavigate the city. It goes relatively smoothly as its a Saturday. The first stop is the Museo archeologico dei Campi Flegrei. We have bit of difficulty finding a parking spot, as there is no designated area for the museum. We settle on a paid parking lot to spare us further trouble. The museum is housed in an Aragonese castle which was built on top of a Roman villa. It’s proposed that the villa might have belonged to Julius Caesar or his uncle Marius. There are some mosaic floors preserved. The rest of the museum seems to be taken over by an photo exposition of nearby Roman sites. Sadly the photographer can’t even be bothered to staighten his horizons so we’re not impressed. Apart from a couple of statues the castle is barren and after climbing all the way to the top we seemed to have missed the rest of the collection. We enjoy the fabulous views over the bay of Naples, no wonder the city was called Baia.
The one thing the photo exposition did us inspire us to look at some more Roman ruins nearby. We head into town trying to find a supermarket for lunch and a parking spot to walk to the sites. But it’s a nightmare, it seems the whole of Naples came here to find a parking spot and it’s impossible to park anywhere. So we decide to skip them and head back to Baia to see the Roman ruins there. Sadly it’s a repeat of the previous village, no parking spaces and when we do our third drive by we find a bakery for lunch, double park and head to a paid parking lot a bit further afield. But our bad luck continuous as it’s payment by card doesn’t work. We finish our lunch and decide to also skip these ruins.
Third time should be a charm as we go to the other side of the peninsula to the ancient Greek colony of Cumua. Again there is no space so Tim is fed up and parks in front of a gate and we head inside. We’re told to move our car as there is a spot in the parking lot so we can safely explore the ruins here. It was the first Greek settlement on mainland Italy, settled in the 8th century BCE.
The city was home to a Sybil or oracle which was housed in a cave which is still there. The children run through the cave scaring away any bears. We climb to the top of the acropolis for great views over the surrounding landscape and the foundations of the temple to Apollo.
Our last stop is the city of Pozzuoli, this great harbour town was the second most important harbour of the Mediterranean in the late republic. We want to start at the amphitheatre, but have to circle it twice before we find a parking spot. It’s the third largest Roman amphitheatre after Rome and Capua. It’s being restored at the moment so the underground area and the cavea are off limits but we still get an idea of the scale of the building.
We leave the car and go for a walk through the town to see some other sites. First is the big marketplace near the harbour. It’s closed but we get a good view while circling it. The last site is on top of the former Acropolis, in the heart of the old town. This part is totally abandoned after a bradyseism in the 1970s. This is a slow earthquake which moved the whole area 1.7 metres up. Part of the old temple to Augustus was converted into a church which lies at the heart of this area.
Olga and the kids walk back to the car while Tim explores the sites from the sky. He flies all the way to the Solfatara crater which has been closed since 2017 after a tragic accident which killed three people. You smell the sulphur everywhere you go in the town so it’s clear this is still a very active volcanic area. We get in our car and head back to Torre del Greco. Zig zagging through the traffic which Tim jinxes when he says it will be a wonder if the car makes it in one piece back to Rome.
Just 5 metres from our home Tim is a bit too enthusiastic or desperate to get home and clips a car which just stopped on the road. Luckily all the scruff marks come of with a sponge.
So we get inside and eat the leftovers from Christmas and play some games with the kids, massage each others neck and back (are we getting old? Our muscles hurt) before heading to bed.
