Colmar

We drove into nearby Colmar the next day to see the old Medieval town, its Eglise and Unter Linden Museum.

In the Eglise St. Martin, looking toward its masterpiece

Martin Schongauer's Virgin of the Roses; we'll see more of 
Schongauer, a predecessor to both Durer and Michaelangelo

On the back side of the triptych, an image we liked

Colmar's cathedral

One of the many big squares

Along a canal

In the Little Venice district (what, your town doesn't have a
Little Venice district?!)

Ditto, with an ultra-quiet electric-motor-driven gondola ride

So we walked past this restaurant and watched this guy making 
tartes flambees and we were hungry and one thing led to another 
and

Voila! Tart flambee; sort of an Alsatian pizza, tomato sauce replaced by onion 
and lots more meat and cheese than any Italian pizza would include; another 
dish to add to our home repertoire

A beautiful old town, very walkable, scenic, well cared-for; 
and quite affordable, compared with some of the places we 
have visited recently

Arrivaderci, Firenze, 2011

Arrivaderci, Firenze; we love you; we'll be

back

Naples Archaeological Museum: Pompei Mosaics And Other Items

The Naples Archaeological Museum's Pompei collections are divided into several sections: mosaics, the "secret chamber" (porno stuff, at least in the eyes of the 18th and 19th century princes, dukes, kings, cardinals, et al.), the Villa of the Papyri, and the frescoes. The frescoes, we thought, are by far the best, porn notwithstanding, and so I will leave them for the next post.

First century Roman mosaic: Durer would have been proud...

Vicki is buying me one of those double-flutes for Xmas

The Faun, the real one, from the House of the Faun

The real Alexander mosaic, from the House of the Faun; Darius' troops already 
are beginning to flee...

One of many portraits in mosaic

Captain's Plate; micro mosaic: sometimes you have to stand right next to these 
things to see that they are mosaics and not oil paintings

The secret chamber has a number of fairly explicit sculptures, mosaics, frescoes, 
and other things, porn, at least by 19th century standards; we thought the phallic 
wind-chimes were the only thing of great interest; classical attitudes about sex

were a bit different from today's; in Roman times and places the phallus was a 
symbol of good luck and prosperity, seen everywhere; alas, none were for sale i
n the trinket shoppes outside the museum

Glass from the huge "everyday objects" collection from Pompei; there were 
also plumbing and illumination and kitchen displays, among many others, 
almost like Home Depot

In the Villa of the Papyrus section; so-named because some 
1,000 carbonized papyrii were found there; many have been 
unrolled and translated, but, alas, rather than a general

library of the classical world, they are merely the works of 
obscure Epicurean philosophers



Bronze athletes from the Villa of Papyri

One of the athletes; bronze Roman copies of Greek originals

Face of one of several bronze dancers

Me, in bronze; I swear I was only drinking tonic water

Naples Archaeological Museum: Farnese Collection

The next day we went into Naples again, to see the National Archaeological Museum there, where the major finds from Pompei and Herculaneum now reside. But we detoured first to its Farnese Collection--the first of several we'll see--which features sculpture and other things from ancient Rome. The Farnese were a powerful Roman family of the Renaissance, aristocratic, papal, etc. They were in power when Caraculla's Baths were being plundered and quarried for stone to build St. Peter's, and the Collection here includes some of the colossal scultpures found, saved, and restored. Give them credit for that.... Anyhow, the Farnese Collections came to the Kings of Naples via royal marriage a couple centuries later.

The National Archaeological Museum, at Naples

Into the collection, colossal in every way



Vicki stands for scale

Artemis, from Ephesus--we have seen her

before

The Farnese Toros--it's a long mythological story, but 
this is the largest sculpture from one piece of marble 
known; pieced back together by no less than 
Michaelangelo and others (another long story)

Hercules at Rest; sort of a Farnese emblem, the tallest marble 
sculpture...

First century copy of a 50 BC bust of Julius

Caesar

Two-fer department--busts of Herodotus and Thucydides

Socrates, Roman copy of a nearly contemporary Greek 
original

Great Hall of the Palace

The Farnese Cup--cameo on one piece of stone...

A Day In Pompeii,II

OK, it was a long day.

In the Fullonicus of Stephanus--the fuller, where wool was cared for, sort of a dry 
cleaners, only not very dry--the principal cleaning agent was urine; here's the big 
tank where slaves tromped around on soiled togas

And the last two of the cascading rinsing tanks; drying was up on the roof



Pompeii has a number of surviving bill boards--messages painted onto walls--
advertising items for sale, election candidates, upcoming gladitorial contests 
and other shows

Pompeii had dozens of eateries; pictured is a counter with built-in bowls for 
foods, wines; in this particular establishment, you could eat around the 
counter or in some of the back rooms; this place may also have had a triclinium, 
a room with three couches for reclining, that could be rented

Up closer of the eatery fresco; note snakes

All kinds of efforts to hold things up, preserve, restore

Not always effective

Larger frescoes at the House of Venus in the Conch Shell



Ditto

Ditto again

Really nice water feature, same place, which was nearly

large enough to be a villa

Vineyard near the anfiteatro; planted again with grapes of the same variety as 
grown in 79

These were discovered using the plaster-cast method in root- and stake-holes; 
same as for human and animal forms; and the grape variety thus identified; the 
grapes are now grown and made into wine using the ancient methods and

sold under the label Villa dei Misteri; we looked all over for a bottle, finally 
finding a 2002 in Sorrento...for 111 euros!

Inside the sizeable and very well preserved/restored amphitheater, mostly the site 
of gladiatorial "games"

Inside the large (Greek) theater

And the small theater

Temple to Isis--by the first century, Romans were getting into the assorted "mystery" 
religions of the east, those that provided a caring god who promised eternal 
salvation--this temple was financed by a six-year-old (whose family was thus 
ensuring his political future; sic transit, Gloria)

The Samnite Palestra; the Samnites were a powerful central Italian tribe, major 
rivals to the Romans; they held Pompeii from the 4th and 3rd centuries, 
succeeded by the Romans

Back near the Porta Marina entrance, remains of the Temple of Venus, perhaps the 
oldest structure in Pompeii

And, lastly, Vesuvius, from Pompeii's Forum; continue the ridge lines right and 
left and you can appreciate the size of the mountain--and the scale of the 
catastrophe--in 79