Camping Spartacus
Pompei
Campania
Italy

December 2013

Among the Ancients

Some 1,600 miles (2560 km) from our base in Cheltenham, en route to Sicily, we find ourselves in one of the most absorbing regions in our 19 years of continuous travel. Yet again a tunnel through the Alps, this time the 8-mile (13-km) Frejus, led from the cold, wind and rain of northern Europe into the calm sky-blue warmth of Italy. And again we were seduced by the slow transition from high mountains to plains of olive groves, vineyards and the shallow-roofed, gutterless houses that spoke of the approaching Mediterranean.

South of Naples, this eccentric campsite of Spartacus is home to just ourselves and three friendly Gypsy couples. They are busy buffing and polishing a continuous supply of brass candelabra and church ornaments, removing a deep patina of verdigris. We enjoy the free WiFi and the even freer ambience, squeezed under trees laden with oranges and lemons that Margaret squeezed into 6 jars of marmalade  For distraction, if not entertainment, we have 321 channels to view if not understand on the local digital freeview TV!

The volcano Vesuvius (4,200 ft or 1270 m) is only 5 miles (8 km) north, ever brooding menacingly on the skyline. Is that a puff of steam? Or smoke? Or just a small cloud in a blue sky? Is that vibration a tremor or just another train rumbling past the campsite? Vesuvius hasn't blown since 1944, but the imagination roams freely in the early hours before dawn.

The ancient site of Pompeii is just across the main road, the Via Plinio. Entry is free for EU pensioners, although mere appearance is not accepted as proof of age (if only that were more generally true). This is an extensive and impressive site, lost for centuries after it was buried under successive waves of tephra: rock fragments thrown high into the air by the volcanic eruption of AD 79. Most of the houses and many of the roads are now closed, following the collapse of the House of the Gladiators in November 2010, and there have been no excavations for several years. However, there is no sign of any maintenance or repair work in progress and the considerable takings at the ticket office (2.5 million visitors annually) are finding their way into other distant pockets.

Eight miles (13 km) northwest, the remains of Herculaneum lie quietly in the sun in a small square dug out from the modern town of Ercolano. The site is better restored and maintained than crumbling Pompeii and many fewer coaches of puzzled and culture-shocked East Asian tourists make it through the narrow approach roads. Most of the population escaped before the prosperous ancient port was buried more deeply in tephra than Pompeii, preserving houses, roofs, artefacts, murals and even charred wooden beams on a great scale. The bad news is that three quarters of the ancient site is now lost under the modern buildings of Ercolano, whose inhabitants peer over a cliff of lava into the excavated site.

Paestum, 36 miles (57 km) south, is the location of three Greek temples whose magnificence in their survival and in their setting is second to none that we have seen the length and breadth of the ancient Greek world. The best of Greek temples are to be found here in Italy, in Sicily and in Turkey: perhaps because, unlike the Greeks, the Ottomans, the Romans and the Italians did not use them as pre-cut stone quarries! Paestum was founded by the Greeks from the 6^th century BC, the Romans taking over in 273 BC, renaming the gods and building their own town, with the usual theatre, amphitheatre, boule, forum, etc. With the site to ourselves, the sea nearby and the sun in a clear blue sky, the day was completed with a pizza each at the nearby La Basilica Café.

Sicily calls and we still aim to cross the Strait of Messina, between Scylla and Charybdis, before the Winter Solstice. In Greek myths, Scylla and Charybdis were sea monsters, one on each side of the Strait, presenting a difficult choice for Odysseus as he passed through from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Ionian Sea, on his way home. Now the monsters are identified as a rock and a whirlpool – the original rock and a hard place.

And so will end a year of change for us: new roads, new places, new faces, a new caravan, a new vehicle and, above all, a renewed commitment to living to the full our life of travel. The shock of the too-early death of Barry's brother brought us directly into contact with the temporary nature of this gift of evolved life and consciousness. It also brought us back into contact with Michael's extended family: his wife Sheila, 5 children, 11 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren, a total of 20 people whose life revolved around him as the head of the family. If we represent what is involved in being long-term travellers, Michael was the epitome of the happily settled family man.

May you enjoy the choices that life puts before you: not between a rock and a hard place, but between being a settler or a traveller. Or choosing to combine both into a full life!

We don't know where it is, but we are sure there is a place waiting for us in Sicily, a place where we can settle long enough to reflect on the year just passing. And perhaps write some account of its events and its learning.