Postcards from Sorrento

The drive along the winding Amalfi coast towards Sorrento in Neapolitan Italy is both spectacular and heart stopping.

The views speak for themselves but what defeats logic is the vigour with which the locals take to their vehicles.

For the uninitiated, cars appear to shrink as they pass one another without skipping a beat. Occasionally a bus driver will stop his vehicle in the middle of a melee of stalled vehicles on a hairpin, all vying to pass and refusing to give way. He will direct traffic, ordering cars to back up so that larger vehicles can maneuver the bend without losing too much paint or ego.

Taking one’s eyes off the road and looking out to sea is almost a contradiction in terms. Bougainvillea tumbles lazily over the pastel coloured buildings, fishing boats bob in the water while the waves of the Tyrrhenian Sea lap over the black volcanic beaches. In the distance across the Bay of Naples lies Mount Vesuvius and it isn’t a stretch of the imagination to consider the reality of living in a volcanic region.

Take the town of Pompeii for instance which lies directly beneath Mount Vesuvius. People were likely going about their business as usual that sunny August morning in 79 AD when the top of the mountain erupted in a massive explosion, drowning the town in twenty feet of ash and killing 6000 of the town’s residents either by asphyxiation or falling buildings.

The ash had the effect of preserving Roman life intact for over 2000 years and when the archaeologists began work in 1748 they were amazed at the story that unfolded of everyday life in Pompeii. We too were amazed and it’s impossible not to be moved at what one sees.

Pompeii’s roadways with carved indentations to guide chariots so that they wouldn’t collide with massive stepping stones placed for pedestrians. The stones were placed at intersections so that people would not dirty their feet in the mire that collected from man and beast. The street grid of homes and businesses all aligned perfectly, the brothels with their colourful paintings leaving nothing to the imagination, the amphitheatre and the forum, all with Mount Vesuvius looking down on the remains of the town, seemingly inert yet potentially menacing.

While only two thirds of the town has been excavated, the poignancy of what we saw was not without its impact as we imagined those early Romans and that instant when all hell broke loose changing their lives forever.

This brings us back to the present day and all those modern day gladiators in their Fiat chariots barreling down the Amalfi coast road. Perhaps they should rein in the horses and take a moment to ponder on Mount Vesuvius, what might have been and what could be.