Tracks South

January 29-31, 2017

It’s Tuesday, the 31st, and we are headed south to Reggio di Calabria for a couple of days. We are on a rail line with snow-capped mountains and orchards on the left and the Mediterranean on the right.

We left the hotel shortly after 8 and Mr. Andrea, who may be the manager of the Hotel Maiuri, drove us to the station. We took a regional train to Salerno and transferred to a high-speed train that will take us the rest of the way, a trip of about four hours.

Unlike those in Spain, France, or Britain, the Italian railroad appears not to be designed for travel. We’re in second-class seats and they are cramped enough to give me flashbacks of flying Virgin Atlantic to London years ago.

The Salerno station is a big transfer point, but it has no waiting room. God, even Hoboken has a waiting room.

Salerno has no escalators to help the decrepit with their bags. There was an elevator down to the underpass, but only a long staircase up to the platform we needed to reach.

We made it, but it was primitive going.

To recap the last couple of days:

Sunday, the 29th, we were back at the ruins. This time the focus of interest was the Villa of the Mysteries. Not as in “Centurion Mustard did it in the impluvium with the gladius.”

Instead, it refers to curious and extraordinarily well preserved paintings on the dining room walls. No one is really sure, but the consensus is that they depict some kind of initiation rite. There is a faun, people who may be dancing, a ritual mask. And adding a little “Story of O” touch, there is a scene of ritual flagellation.  

The villa has been partly restored. It has a roof, for instance, although the tons of volcanic debris that buried the place would have caved the original roof in.

It is well worth the hike from the Forum to the Herculaneum Gate and the necropolis just outside. It seems the Pompeiians buried the ashes of their dead near the gates. Each gate seems to have its necropolis.

The Herculaneum Gate necropolis includes a large tomb for a priestess named Mumia, or Mamia. The stone with the second letter of her name has been lost.

The villa has several intact rooms with mosaic floors. Like most of the upscale residences in Pompeii, the walls are plastered and covered with frescoes. One anteroom is decorated with Egyptian motifs: ibises and bird-headed gods holding ankhs, and the like. 

Other rooms are covered with red panels (a very popular color) and trompe-l’oeil pictures of columns.

Almost everything in modern Pompei closes for the afternoon, so when we left sometime after four, there was no place to go for a meal. Good thing we weren’t in need of groceries or clothes, because we couldn’t buy those either. 

We did stop at the Sanctuary Bar to get Joanna a hot chocolate and me an espresso and a beer. 

We went back to the hotel and collapsed for a while. Too tired to go much farther, we went back to Maccarone.

We had spaghetti with a sauce made of yellow, red, and San Marzano tomatoes. We also ordered Angus cut. Turns out, that’s a sliced steak, not unlike London broil. I ate the rare pieces, and Joanna took the ones less pink inside.

Not quite satisfied, we followed that up with the appetizer of the day, squid stuffed with broccoli rapa and served with the ginger cream sauce that came with the octopus tentacles the other day.

This was the only dish at Maccarone that we didn’t like. The squid was tough and didn’t blend well with the greens. Even the sauce, which was terrific with the octopus, couldn’t pull it together.

I had dinner with something new, a Sardinian wine called Cannonau. It had a little bite, reminiscent of Chianti, but was distinguished by a strong spicy edge. 

We had originally planned to go back to the ruins on our last day in Pompei. We hadn’t seen the Triangular Forum or the two theaters. But those ancient paving stones are rough on the feet. 

As magical as that place is, we decided to take Monday as a day of rest. We have more than a month to go in Italy and don’t want to cripple ourselves up in the first week.

We strolled to the laundromat, where for about seven bucks a lady washed and dried a bag of laundry for us.

It was around one in the afternoon, and we tried to find a place that was open. The search brought us back to Al Gamberone.

Joanna had a bowl of all-right minestrone, and I had a plate with pecorino, Parmagiana, and mozzarella. I also had a couple of glasses of the house red, which didn’t have a lot of flavor and may have been served too cold.

We collected our laundry and headed back for a nap.

Joanna had asked on Sunday night at Maccarone about fish grilled with the head and tail. We can do that, the waiter said.

So when we showed up Monday night, our regular waiter wasn’t working, but his colleague knew what we had come to eat. He brought two bass on a plate, and we took the larger one.

We had that with more of the spaghetti with three types of tomato, and with a glass each of the Puglian Negroamara and the local Aglianico. 

We arranged for a 5:30 wake-up call conked out sometime after 10.

I had Google directions to get to Reggio by a train that was to leave Pompei around 9:30 Tuesday morning. The itinerary involved the change at Salerno and another farther down the line at a station called San Giovanni. 

The man in the ticket office made it easier for us. An 11:20 train out of  Salerno would take us directly to Reggio di Calabria.

Not only did that eliminate dragging our bags through another transfer, but also avoided an unforeseeable complication.

We had a 10-minute window for the transfer at San Giovanni. I wasn’t sure we could make it under the best circumstances. And as it happened, today’s are not the best circumstances for making connections.

It’s quarter past two, and we are sitting at a station called Lamezia. Our train has been held for about 20 minutes so far because of demonstrators on the tracks ahead.

You always see the worst side of a landscape from the train. Well, that’s not true of Tuscany, where the train from Rome runs through Renaissance landscapes. 

But it’s true in the States and just about anywhere else. As we have traveled south, though, the view has improved. The clusters of buildings are cleaner and less decayed. There are the remains of medieval hill towns overlooking the shore.

I’m just about out of material, and all this sitting has built a thirst. I may go to the cafe car from some vino and a snack.

I’ll send this when I get a connection and write more in a few days.

Be well, everyone, and watch out for demonstrators on the tracks. 

Harry

Jan. 31

Cannonau is the word in Sardinian dialect for Grenache, the workhorse grape of Provence and the foundation for all of those Cote du Rhone wines we enjoyed there.

Larry

Feb. 1

Is the woman on the left in the picture weeping on the woman in the middle or doing something more lascivious?

Charlie

Feb. 2

That's the flagellation motif.

Lascivious?

I guess that depends on one's inclinations.