Sav: Today we decided to stick around Naples and check out the town. John headed off to Rome early this morning so it was Meags and Anthony and I out on an adventure! After a coffee we put on our adventure caps and set out into the streets.

Our first stop was the Archaeological Museum, which had been recommended to us by multiple people. It was almost entirely statues, which caught us by surprise. We explored room after room of gods and heroes and legends, and entertained ourselves by making up what we thought they might be thinking if they were real. One very muscular statue of Hercules was leaning on stump for a rest, and Meaghan interpreted it as ‘the look you get when you drop your phone but you are way too tired to pick it up, so you just stare at it feebly and maybe half-ass reach your hand out towards it.” Giggle fits from the three of us quite obviously ensued.

M: One of my favourite parts of the museum was the papyrus scrolls retrieved from a giant personal library in Herculaneum. They are so fragile that they had to come up with a special technique to unroll them because the texts are usually destroyed when being unrolled. Only about two were on display but within the Villa of the Papyri archaeologists have found more than 1,500 ancient texts, making the Villa the largest intact library from antiquity. I loved looking at these scrolls and thinking about the care put into them in so long ago, and all the care put into unraveling their secrets since their discovery in the 18th century.

S: There was one particularly ‘interesting’ room called the Secret Room.. Which was where they squirreled anything that could be remotely interpreted as sexual. It was really odd… Meaghan had some good insights on that one.

M: When we saw Secret Room on the map, the three of us immediately said “WE MUST GO THERE,” thinking it would be cool like Ancient Roman assassins or something. We were not expecting the room to be full of explicit imagery and penises with wings. The mosaics depicted sexual positions, and there were a few bestiality sculptures thrown in for fun. I have to say, the flying penises with bells were very entertaining.

After our trip to the museum we set off for the Duomo, happy that the rain had stopped for a bit.

S: Along the way, by my brilliant navigational skills, we happened upon a small room in the side of a huge building that housed an insanely detailed scale model of a city… We still don’t know what exactly it was. This room was completely decorated in little houses and people and every wall warped inwards and held a stone ledge with more houses. The ceiling was dark, save some blue twinkling Christmas lights that imitated stars. It was such a gem of a find!

M: The Duomo was quite a sight. We strolled through and looked at all the different chapels along the sides. The Duomo houses the dried blood of Saint Januarius, which is brought out twice a year and the blood is supposed to liquefy. If the blood remains solid, it is said that a great disaster will befall Naples. In 1944 the blood didn’t liquefy, and Mount Vesuvius erupted. Before I could finish going around and learning more about Saint Januarius, I had a coughing fit and had to leave the church. But it was really nice when I was in there!

S: After this we grabbed some dinner at a pasta place, complete with ‘un’altra bottiglia’ and then retired after a long few days of exploration. It’s about time we caught up with our journaling and blog writing!

S&M