We had a second day in Rome, and rode the bus, picking up the gypsies at the stop after ours, the women with long skirts, flowered headscarves, and wildly colored and striped socks. They pile onto the bus with shopping carts and empty baby carriages. We all leave the bus at the train station where Deane and I pick up the metro, and I don’t know where they go.
San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome holds several significant relics: the heads of St. Peter and St. Paul, for two, housed in two golden statues in a reliquary lifted high above the sanctuary, almost too high to be accessible to the kind of devotion that relics often inspire. I saw more people around the brass relief of the Last Supper, which housed a piece of the cross, and around the statue of St. John the Baptist.
From San Giovanni, we walked in the direction of the Coliseum. We could see something down the street, and Deane asked, “Is that the Coliseum?” I thought, “We’re in the one place in the world where we could ask that question.” The Coliseum is huge and iconic, and restored enough to give a sense of what it once was. I learned that Christians were probably not martyred in the Coliseum, contrary to legend.
From the Coliseum, we crossed the street to the Roman forum, a huge collection of excavated ruins of temples and public spaces, the intact columns and the variety of temples showing the religious diversity of Rome in the early common era, including a temple for Vestal Virgins.
From Rome, we drove to Sorrento to stay for three days, using our hotel there as a base to explore Pompeii and Herculaneum. From reading reviews on booking.com, I knew that the road to our hotel was very narrow, but even so, we were not prepared for what that really meant. Here’s a picture of Deane driving the last stretch.
Sorrento is on the ocean, so fresh seafood is on the menu. We had an amazing pasta with clam sauce, looking like not much, but tasting like the whole ocean.
The ruins at Pompeii are so extensive that it is overwhelming, acres and acres of houses and shops. There were temple areas defined with restored columns, but little left of the evidence of religious activity other than that. Many frescoes had been taken to the museum in Napoli, along with statuary and other objects, so what is left is a vast empty town, that nonetheless, through details like the cartwheel ruts in the road, marble-faced counters in taverns and stores, and the grinding mills and large ovens, had echoes of the human lives that once filled it.
We also went to Ercolano, where the town of Herculaneum was covered by the same eruption of Vesuvius that obliterated Pompeii. This was an easier site to visit, smaller, and with more left intact, even wood, which was carbonized but not burned from the intense heat. One house with amazing mosaics was the highlight.
Back in Sorrento, our hotel manager, Marco, told us that there was a procession that night starting at 3am, and that we should attend it if we could. The men in the procession wear white gowns with peaked hoods, which resemble the KKK gowns in the US. However, in this case, the white gowns represent the Virgin Mary in her search for her son. So we slept for a few hours, and started back into town at 2:30am. As we approached the town, we could hear the band start to play and walked faster. We found a chorus of perhaps 75 men singing, the leader singing a phrase or word (“Misere” was the only word I could make out), and the chorus singing a response. After a while of singing, the procession began, lit by torchlight. Groups of four men abreast came from the church, fully robed and hooded. The first groups alternated carrying crosses and carrying torches. Then, other objects from the crucifixion began to appear -- scourges, crowns of thorns, the rooster, lances, interspersed with crucifixes small and large. Then a statue of the Virgin Mary was brought out, followed by a full size crucifix. When the whole procession, which Marco said involved 2000 people, had passed, we followed the crowd to the main square, where we watched again.
Later in the morning, we left Sorrento for Bari to catch a ferry to Greece. We had time to walk a little in Bari, and we heard band music again. Following the music, we found another procession, this one with life-sized statues representing various events leading up to Jesus’ death, with bands in between. We watched for a while, then left for the ferry, where we spent the night in “airplane seats.”
One of the last things I was expecting to see as the ferry pulled into Patras, Greece, was snow-covered mountains, but there they were, in the brilliant sunshine. We had an easy drive to Olympia, Greece, where we had a lovely dinner with the first of, I hope, many Greek salads, and my first taste of taramosalata (a spread or dip made with fish roe), which was tangy and salty but not at all fishy -- even Deane, who had warned me that I would have to eat the whole order, liked it.
We knew that there was a midnight service in the Greek Orthodox church on Easter, and one of the shop keepers gave us more detail. Alone, the Patriarch enters the sepulchre in the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem to receive a mysterious fire, or light, which is then passed to all the churches and on to the congregants at midnight. The appearance of the light is considered miraculous. The arrival of Easter is celebrated with church, candles and fireworks. When we heard the chanting/singing from the church across the street, we went out in front of the hotel to see. The church was packed to the rafters, with people out the door and more coming with candles. There were constant fireworks from two locations near the church throughout the service. At midnight, the church went dark, and the fire was passed from candle to candle until all were lit. Then people began to come out of the church, and the fireworks became more dramatic. Finally, all the rockets had been ignited, and people left for home, shielding their candles as they made their way back to their cars. After almost everyone was gone, and the church doors were closed, the grandmother from our hotel made her way across the street with her candle, and we went to bed.
Today, Easter, we are having a quiet day off. Only a few restaurants are open, and the ruins here we had come to see are closed. We’ve had a long walk and a good breakfast, a nap and time to read. I feel very blessed, and hope that all of you reading this have had more than your share of blessings, too.
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