Day 22 - Tarquinia and the Etruscan Necropolis

The first item on the list today was to find a place to drop our bags while we continued touring. Although Garibaldi offered to hold on to them for us for free, we wanted to have them closer to the train station in case we had to grab them quickly during a transfer. Although our plans were to end up in Sorrento, far south of Rome, our first intentions were to make a slight detour to the north and visit the tiny hamlet of Tarqunia, which has been inhabited since before the Latins invaded.

We dropped our suitcases off at the train station's left-luggage, which was an adventure in itself. Needless to say, like many things in Italy, the left luggage office did not run smoothly. And it was rather, costly too. Anyways, while waiting in line we were entertained by the discussions between the young Israeli student who had decided to explore Rome a bit during his 5 hour layoverand the English woman and her 12 year-old nephew, who were on the closing weeks of a 3 month grand European tour.

Travel is awesome.

Anywho, we actually had very little trouble getting to Tarquinia, except for finding, on our arrival, that the train station was tiny and empty. Very empty. Like closed for the season empty. Like, scene straight out of The Stand empty. Waiting for crows to come and peck the flesh from our dessicated corpses empty. It was, to say the least, an ominous opening to our tour of ancient cemeteries.

Having no trouble catching the shuttle up to the town (believe it or not!) we started our tour with the National Museum of Etruscan Art. The Etruscans populatd Italy before the Romans came and took it over, so everything we would be seeing was considerably over 2000 years old. Most Etruscan "art" which has survived consists of sarcophagi and other burial implements that have been excavated from cemetaries such as the one Tarquinia is famous for. This fine example depicts a notable Tarquinian citizen displaying on a roll of parchment his important family ties and the awards and titles awarded to him during his life.


Here's the famous terra-cotta winged horses excavated at the local necropolis.

Heading over to the bus station, we determined that the next shuttle to the necropolis wouldn't be by again for some time. As we preferred not to have to walk the (mostly uphill) distance through a town we didn't have a map for, we instead decided to take some food. We had a rather unsatisfactory (but quick) meal of burgers at a local establishment which seemed built to serve the rather meagre tourist trade. Then we hopped the correct shuttle to the tombs.

The necropolis is up on the top of the hillside, giving you a commanding view of the surrounding country.

Here's what the tombs look like in the bright light of day.

The situation was that you would walk up to one of the tomb doors, see if it was unlocked and, if it was, coordinate the tomb name with your audioguide. Then you would descend on rickety stairs into the dark earth.

Then, at the bottom of the stairs, you'd sidle up to a glass wall and press a little button on the side to light it up and reveal the tomb.

It really was a kind of spooky experience, especially the first time.

Here's a better picture which gives you an idea of the detail of the paintings.

An Estruscan symposioum/funeral party.

Then there's these things. Don't ask.

After leaving the necropolis thoroughly impressed, we determined that the shuttle to town had just recently left us in the dirt and, given that the trek would now be primarilly downhill, we might as well just walk back to the main station. Tarquinia itself is a quaint little medieval hilltown, like so many others in Italy, but considerably less touristy than most. Garibaldi had expressed surprise that we were chosing to visit this location when we took our leave from him that morning, and we got the impression that it's not high on the list of most tourists. Assuch, once you've seen th necropolis, you've pretty much seen everything there.

Arriving back at the shuttle main stop, it took us a while to figure out which bus went back to the station, but we eventually got it sorted. We then spent the next 45 minutes lounging around the disturbingly empty station before catching one of the last trains back to Rome that evening.

Arriving backin Rome, we figured we had more than enough time to catch the next (and last) train to Naples. However, we had not taken into account our luggage. It took a while to get it out of the left luggage office, and by the time we were able to roll away with it, we had to do so running in order to catch our train. We did, and an hour of blissfully quite train travel ensued.

Arriving in Naples we found that, luckily, there was one more train to Sorrento that evening. We hurried over to the platform where we'd pick up the local commuter, keeping a sharp eye on our pockets (as the Naples train station has a bad reputation for thieves).

This is when we got our first tast of the Circumvesuviana.

What's that? It's the train system that services the towns surrounding the bay of Naples. Being that it was late, it was not very crowded and we had no problem finding a seat or a spot for our luggage...which was a good thing, because otherwise we'd have been standing for a looooooong time.

Although there is not that great of a distance as the crow flies between Naples and the town of Sorrento (which is the end of the line), it appears as though the Circumvesuviana actully detours through a wormhole which, oddly enough, adds time to the trip as opposed to making it faster. As the CV (as I'm going to start referring to it, because it takes a long time to type Circumvesuviana with gnome fingers) is basically the only public transportation servicing these tiny towns at the base of the famous volcano, it is contractually obligated to stop at every. damn. one.

So, yeah, it was sometime after 9pm when we finally made it to our hotel in downtown Sorrento. After our arrival and quick check in we asked the desk clerk if he knew any place nearby where we could still get served. Oddly enough, he did. We ended up around the corner at a fairly nice place which served some of the better food we had while in Italy. We were worried they wouldn't take us as it was all but empty when we arrived, but the folks seemed happy to cater to late American tourists. So we sat down, ordered, and proceeded to watch the proprietor eat his dinner at the tble next to us while going over books and ordering around lackeys.

The next day was The Big Day. The day we'd all been waiting for. The day for which this entire vacation was planned. Volcano day...

Quote of the Day: If there was one, it has since ascended into the afterlife...