Hello and welcome back to another episode of Only a Bag in Italy travel Podcast.

I'm Nathaniel Melor.

And I'm Darcy Melton.

I'm trying to change this up and make it fun.

Today we're going to be talking about day trips.

We're actually starting with the ruins and castle and it's one or not the castle.

It's like, I guess, I guess the palace city thing.

And we wanted to do that because though the the seaside ones are a bit more common.

We've talked about them before and we were kind of going to instead of talking about why you should go more how to get there with these.

While there's definitely going to be some how to get there, it's going to be predominantly also why you should go because I thought like, you know what, let's let's try to light on some of these places, especially if we only touched on them very briefly in the past.

However, before we get started, just want to say a very big thank you to everyone who's been leaving reviews and following along.

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Thank you.

Agoda.

I was like, man, that's lunchtime again.

So if you book through one of those, you will we, we make a portion of their money, not yours.

So I mean, it's your money, but you're not paying more.

Terrible explanation.

So you're welcome.

All right, without any further ado, let's jump right into it.

OK, let's do.

It let's talk about, I guess, let's go.

I mean, getting out of the way early Pompeii, right?

Yeah, I mean, I feel like that's the number one place people tell you.

To go to the number one.

Place when you're visiting Naples.

It is worth it, obviously, yes, And I'm only we're only going to spend a couple seconds on it, but essentially first getting there.

The Churkunposuviana or the Combining Express are both trains.

Churkunposuviana more like a metro than a train.

It is not something you can book a seat.

It does not have air conditioning.

It does not have a luggage rack.

If you're going there and staying at Pompeii, you it's going to be of essentially a metro.

It's very much like 1980s old school sort of subway.

The Companion Express is a lot more nude school.

It is a it's a lot more expensive.

It's like 15 instead of like 3, I think on the chickenpox of Vienna.

But you do get a dedicated seat.

You do get luggage space.

It's has air conditioning and it only runs to like Herculaneum, Pompeii, Sorrento and a few others that are big sort of visit like tourism.

It's a tourism train essentially.

Not essentially in actual development.

It was a tourism train.

So for visiting the train's the easiest way.

You can also take the bus if you have something like if you have like a like a tour bus or something like that.

But I would recommend the train because it literally drops you both of those Turkom Vesuviana and the Companion Express drop you literally at the front door to the park.

However, if you take like the train Italia train, it does not.

It drops you sort of in in Pompeii, the town.

So it's a little bit, not close necessarily, but you're at the front door.

Well worth it.

The only real note I wanted to make is is potentially unless you are OK with massive crowds, avoided on free days.

We talked about this before.

They're now capping the amount of entries per day and especially seems to affect free days more than paid days because it's like it's at a couple 1000 people per day.

But that's they're essentially like we only hit this in the height of summer or on free days and in free days even in like on the offseason can be just a mad house.

So I highly recommend avoiding on a free day, but it's still still I think probably worth visiting.

Oh yeah, it's absolutely incredible.

One note is that it there's not a lot of shade.

It's basically completely open.

So in summer it's going to be very hot.

When it's raining, it's hard to find cover.

It's possible, but that's just a note.

Yeah.

No, that's actually that's quite noted.

Yeah.

If you're going the height of summer, it's going to be a Tuesday day and then so moving along, I apologize.

If I'm going too fast, I do apologize.

No, I think that's good.

We've talked about Pompeii.

Before OK, I wanted to.

Make sure and if we maybe have we ever done a whole episode on it?

Not really, but.

Maybe one day we will because it's there's a lot there.

So I was, I was thinking as nervous because we're not historians.

So it's like, you know, it's a good point.

So what does this thing?

We don't know but.

There's it's very cool.

There's a lot a lot to it.

So 100% recommend you visit Pompeii.

Yeah, no, for sure.

So I think actually on that note, Herculaneum, which we also have talked even less about than Pompeii, is actually before Pompeii on the train.

So if you get on the CHERK, on Besuvia, on the Companion Express, you stop off earlier.

If you're in the companion Express, by the way, and you're really into seeing ruins of Herculaneum in Pompeii, that ticket allows you.

So you basically you can get back on the train as long as you're going in the same direction.

So it is even that's because it's an expensive ticket.

It's designed if you're going from Naples to Herculaneum, you get off, explore Herculaneum, get back on the train, and as long as you're going towards Pompeii and not back towards Naples, you can use the same ticket and then go all that to Sorrento.

So essentially if you're like, I want to go here, here, here and here, totally fine.

However, if you're going to go back after just one, you have to get a new ticket.

OK, I don't.

I love that sound.

That was so disapproving.

I just don't.

I wish you could go back and forth.

So if you wanted to start with Pompeii, then come back towards Herculaneum and back to Naples, that would make sense, you know?

Yes, that would be, but you can punch into them.

Actually, that's not bad.

Thank you, I will.

So it was actually discovered 50 years before they discovered Pompeii, I thought was interesting.

And then about 25 years after that is when they actually excavated Pompeii because they discovered and then excavated, they actually found herculanium while digging for a well or drilling for a well.

And then I think they went through somebody's roof and they're like, what have we found?

They stole a bunch of stuff.

And actually, that's literally the history of I think Herculanum and kind of Pompeii.

But I think Pompeii, at least when it was first discover, had a bit more.

I mean, again, we're talking like 70 years later when they fully start excavating at late 18th century.

So there's a bit more of like, we should probably protect some of these things, not just like, let people just take things.

And that was unfortunate.

Herculaneum, I think at the beginning, a lot of it was just taking things.

Interestingly, though there are in theory, in practice I don't think this is basically Pompeii was hit hard, right?

Very little warning, hit hard.

And it was hit like one Vesuvius, Yeah.

And it was basically one PMI think on October 17th is what they is.

What the date that people think it is now?

It used to be thought it was August.

We talked about this before.

Essentially there's a lot of like there's no way it could be August.

That's insane.

And the reason we thought it was August is a historian.

I think it was plenty of the elder, plenty of the younger wrote St.

It was August and everyone's like, are you an idiot?

How could it be August?

That's.

Because he also wasn't there.

Yeah.

I mean, obviously, but.

Right.

So, but we were, I think, still basing a lot of like, oh, he must have done some research and everyone's like bad research.

But shall we say why people think it was later?

I will, yes, you, you say and then actually I'll add one more, but yes.

It's been a long time since I've learned this, but it is because of the food that was preserved in jars and such, so it was like wine.

I think they're already fermenting wine wax seals already applied to the earthenware jars, which is usually when you're you're going to start fermenting, you're not going to unseal it.

Figs were dried instead of fresh and then they actually were in heavier clothing.

So it's like the like it's a very heavy clothing for August.

But I thought was interesting as a woman in Herculaneum was found with a coin in her coin purse.

That was it was basically of the new emperor and it could not have been minted in before the second week of September of that year.

So like it was impossible for this to be in her coin purse before the second week of September because everything else was kind of circumstantial.

Like, OK, yes, they could have picked figs earlier.

It could have been it could have been a cold year.

It could have been what you know, but that is something that like you can't concrete.

Yeah.

So that was a really fascinating cool.

And so Herculaneum is the wealthier of the two cities.

And whereas Pompeii was hit hard at 1:00 PM on October 17th with just basically the the debris falling onto the city, Herculaneum was actually not.

It was only hit with ash, but it was enough to make most people get out because they thought this is going to be bad.

It was 1:00 AM that night that the pyroclastic flow actually hit Herculanum at properly and it did.

Some of it preserved some of it destroyed outright, but it because it like apparently the flow carbonized before actually hitting Herculanum.

What happened is instead of burning a lot of plant and paper goods to ash, it actually preserved them.

So a lot of the Pyruses are preserved exactly.

A lot of the food stuffs, a lot of a lot of the plant fibers are preserved or that we have are actually preserved from Herculanum rather than Pompeii.

That was fascinating.

Of course it does.

It's apparently very difficult to, we talked to us before.

Actually pigeon poop is one of the main reasons that it's very difficult to preserve herculanum.

As soon as it's exposed, it does start deteriorating quickly, partly because of these.

I, I, I think robbers is the term used like basically people going in and just stealing things, not necessarily the people of Eric Olana, which is the modern day town.

It was just people coming, visiting and stealing things or like, or people like.

I'm saying, people.

I I don't know if it's like specifically like backed groups, but it looks like they're funding people to go and and steal things to for.

Their house kind of organized.

Well, I feel like that's what a lot of it would like.

I feel like no, I feel like, but using other times as examples, like whether it's Pompeii or whether it's just people robbing tombs in Egypt, it's like you put together a, a you pay for somebody to go and bring you back things to decorate your house with.

So it's like, all right, that seems not awesome.

But interestingly, I, I found the two interesting things I found is that so at the beginning, it was basically stealing artifacts, which on the one hand, though arguably did preserve the artifacts because once they were stolen, people did not want them to just, you know, they paid money for them.

And then later it was actually trying to preserve the buildings, which is what they're still doing and which is why they've actually halted the excavation for whatever reason.

They're not halting excavation of not for whatever reason.

Erikolana or Herculanum is closer to the water.

And I think that makes it harder to preserve Pompeii.

It seems to be a little bit easier to preserve.

So they're still excavating and then preserving as they go along.

Herculanum is a little bit less.

There's also far less money in it, both from the visitors and in terms of just like federal slash EU money in it.

And it's actually a private fund that's been doing a lot of the preserving.

But in in the 80s under Sarah Beisel, she was the curator at the time of this.

She was actually the one who's like, we should probably start preserving the bodies rather than the stuff.

So that's actually it's under her.

They started preserving the bodies because I think you mentioned on one episode for Herculeanism, they found 300 people basically killed in a, in a, in a, in a boathouse and in the shore.

They were just hiding and and obviously did not make it and that so I'm so saying that's like even though people had the a warning like a 12 hour warning to get out.

I think if you couldn't really get me like it's also.

Couldn't go anywhere.

That was the thing.

It felt like you either can't go anywhere or you don't have the money to go anywhere, or you're like, what are you going to walk?

Like by the time we get ash is falling from the sky.

Exactly.

I think it's also my understanding, again, not a historian, but it's my understanding that Vesuvius rumbled fairly often.

So it wasn't abnormal for a day like this to happen, and they just didn't.

Obviously no one knew how bad it was going to be, so by the time they realized what kind of emergency it was, it was too late for a lot.

Of that and that's I think that's exactly it and I think that that is exactly it.

The other thing I thought was fascinating is if you want to, we've talked about this before with Pestem, which we haven't done a full episode, which we should, but it's beautiful because it's the Greek colony turned city and there are still these really deep grooves in the roads there from where the carts just over years and years and years of the carts have dug these deep grooves.

Herculaneum is like that.

They have these deep grooves in the roads that are not like not intentional.

They didn't dig grooves to make it.

It's like that's what happened.

But it also that's interesting.

You can still see some lead piping like that's coming through the ground for where they carried the water to the houses because these are again, much wealthier houses.

Super cool.

So that that's a big, I thought it was kind of a fun thing of like getting to see like little bits of the past basically.

And Herculaneum moving to the northeast.

If I'm trying to just make this cardinal directions, y'all are just not my strong suit.

I don't understand.

I can let you remember the northeast.

It is northeast.

OK, It's Caserta.

It's the royal palace of Caserta.

We talked about this before.

I have this weird love of Caserta despite the fact I've never actually been there and despite the fact I've been through the town of I think once, and I didn't love it because it's not a town you should go to.

It's.

Just like a 1980s sort of modern.

Town.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, more or less.

I mean, it's, it's very modern.

I think it's technically a part of it.

Some is 1800s because it was built up around the royal palace of Cassetta.

Did I say 1800s?

You said 80s.

Yes, OK, I thought so.

So yeah, and there was, but I think later as it expanded it just because it's flat.

So it just, it just exploded in growth when people were moving from I think what is now called Cassetta Vecchia, which is the old Cassetta down the hill or down the mountain to new Cassetta.

So it's just like population explosion.

I think it's just cool because it's, I mean, it's just one of the things that is an interesting beer one.

It's been a lot of movies that's I think first and foremost, if you've seen Star Wars the the prequels, the you know, OK, not the great ones.

You've seen the prequels of Star Wars.

Have you seen Chaos, the TV show on Netflix, Conclave 2 popes, Mission Impossible 3 angels and demons.

Essentially, if you've seen the Vatican in the inside of a in the Vatican in a movie, it's almost certainly.

It's like that big staircase that is in so many movies.

Right.

It's called the Staircase of Honor, apparently.

And, and so that was in chaos.

It's Zeus's part of Zeus's house in in what is the Vatican movie Conclave.

Conclave.

It's part of the Vatican.

It's, it's insane.

It's beautiful.

It's beautiful.

It's basically the crowning achievement of the Baroque era kind of thing is what it's called.

And actually one of the reasons it's becoming UNESCO World Heritage site is basically it's like the, IT is the, the, the, the, the, the peak of Baroque, you know, then before it kind of went down and it was essentially the, the King Baroque before Baroque.

Oh my.

God, it never broke but but.

That was, I love that.

And actually Speaking of it being broke, no, that's not a segue.

Nah, it doesn't work.

Never mind.

I was gonna say no.

The reason it was actually built is the king at the time thought that Naples was too revolt prone and wanted to.

I was like, yeah, it is.

If they will, they will.

For good reason.

So that he built that.

He wanted to build this thing outside of Naples and how's the Garrison there to protect them and things like that.

Hired a guy who's very influenced by Versailles of the Palace of Versailles.

Makes sense?

But what I thought was interesting is that I didn't, I don't really know much about Versailles or France or Paris in general, but one of the fall, the shortfalls is essentially just a summer home.

It's difficult to actually do business there.

Like so the government visiting and things like that is it was you couldn't run the country.

I mean, I think Louis the 16th tried, but it was difficult to run the country.

So this guy was like, I want to solve that problem.

So he wanted to create a place where libraries could exist, university could exist, the government officials could exist, under secretaries and secretaries, cabinet ministers, all of that could all live and exist in this place.

So essentially he was creating a city, or town, if you will, from scratch, but is a royal town from scratch, which that was kind of fascinating actually on the property, instead of knocking it down or buying it and destroying it, there's a silk factory that they disguised as a gazebo because they didn't want to see it, I guess.

So they're just like, that's just not yours, but we're just gonna leave that there, which I thought was really funny.

Yeah, it is wild.

It's actually the largest former royal residence in the world.

I don't know if that means like Buckingham.

I don't know if there's a current royal residence that's larger.

I also know that with like, if this is the same thing as like Saudi royalty or something like that, they're probably some massive residencies somewhere.

But this is the largest of, of the former royal residency.

So it's just a huge amount of space, huge amount of garden and and green space, basically.

So in and I just I thought was interesting.

It's did have a bit of a sad history.

I think later Speaking of it, going Baroque it the guy who wanted to built never actually lived there.

He actually was.

He stepped down as king.

He not deposed, but anyway, gave up the king king position.

There's a word for that that I'm spacing out abdicated the throne.

Oh, thank you, Darcy.

Yes, you're welcome.

New York Times crossword puzzle champion right here.

And became the king of Spain instead.

So I think it was like, I don't know, it's like shifting jobs moving up in the in the thing.

I know I'm like, y'all, nobody was like, do you want to be king of Spain instead of whatever you're doing as a day job?

That's amazing.

And so he actually never got to live there, even though he was in love with it.

He was like when you first saw the plans for it, he was like, it filled my, you know, heart with so much passion.

It was burst out of my chest.

And I love that.

Like he sees a building and he's like, oh, gorgeous, never got to actually see it or live in there.

And then essentially it got like kind of just fell in disrepair.

People weren't using it.

It was a bomb that I think the Nazis used it as a as a base in the 40s.

It was bombed in the also the 40s.

And then NB ended up being used as a location for the war crimes trials.

The Allied ran the war crimes trials from there.

Not the Nuremberg ones, obviously not the Nuremberg, but the IT was specifically for the Mediterranean theater.

It seems like.

Interesting end up executing people in versa, which I thought was interesting people being specifically German ranking officers and officials and and from there though, we really did fall into disuse.

It was basically looted completely, completely stripped.

They aren't really sure who looted it.

Like essentially it's like some people assume they're Nazis because they're looting everything at the time.

Some people assume like maybe some, you know, allied soldiers made off of their or whatever is left and you know, it was like it's really nothing.

Nobody's keeping track of these things essentially and legitimately was a locked door preventing people from stealing what was there.

So they've done as much as they could since then, especially since like the late 80s to sort of renovate, rebuild, try to make it the same, try to gold leaf, what was gold leaf to things like that.

And whatever they can't replace, they have made reproductions of.

So it's unfortunate that like, I mean, a lot of the obviously the staircase and things like that are just gorgeous and it's an integral part of the, the, the structure, But it's like, you know, the chairs and the, you know, the paintings and everything else.

Was just.

Exactly.

So it's unfortunate, but again, going back to that sort of thing where I don't know, sometimes I think like it'll just it's not the wealth of the North where it's like there would have just been a constant kind of not constant, but it some of these some of the places I think in the North got that sort of like there was money.

There's always somebody watching over, there's always somebody protecting it kind of thing.

So we have certain pieces and I think the South just got like, yeah, then we just somebody died, left it and then it got stolen kind of thing.

So moving along, since we're already 18 minutes, few, few other places I want to touch on if that's good.

I guess first is the Kume.

We've talked about this in the last last week's episode.

I, I think I briefly touched on it just in terms of history of if, if Naples, fascinating little place.

I will just genuinely A fascinating place because.

Where is it exactly?

West of Naples on the coast.

But unlike the mainland of Italy.

Or the mainland of Italy.

Yeah.

And it's so I love by the way.

So I, I mentioned and I wanted to did more research on this because I was also fascinating.

It is the first Greek colony of Magda Grecia on mainland Italy.

Again, just the it's even this sort of like this like a colonist mindset even back then.

It's sort of even the way it's written now makes it think like there's nothing else there and they're like right next door to this like a non Oscan settlement, but as a a post pre oscan settlement like Austinite I think so I'm like oh so next door.

To the native people who are.

Already living.

OK, got it.

So you guys just whatever, fine.

And when I find the the So that was just one that I found fascinating because again, all these things are written like they found this undiscovered land.

No, no, no.

It was very much next door to people who are already living there.

But what was fascinating to me, one, it was founded from the settlers of AO.

I'm definitely going to pronounce this AO Baya, modern day Evia, which is a pretty large island to the right of Greece.

So I want to like just for geographic purposes, they went from the east of Greece, the right of Greece, around Greece, down around Italy, to the left of Italy.

They went a long way.

They went I'm like y'all just love being on a boat.

I think this is just like just an excuse to be on a boat the whole time.

Y'all could have made land at any other point.

So they found it there and actually there were in what is now modern day Iskia was a Greek settlement as well.

So they went to Iskia first and like guys, we have the perfect place for you.

It's a little hill, gorgeous view.

It's got some Greenland, absolutely beautiful.

There's nobody to live next door.

They have to worry about.

We're just going to fight them in a minute.

And that's essentially what they were doing and actually later ended up losing.

It was great.

I won't too much history to get into, but what I thought was fascinating is so when they say the first Greek colony in mainland Italy like swimmable distance from Italy?

Was a Greek colony, but they're like, well, that's not mainland Italy.

It's an island doesn't help.

That's like so it's the first mainland one, which I thought was just kind of fascinating.

The ruins are still there, but the reason I wanted to mention it is for a couple reasons, but one, they're they're so ruins.

A lot of the stuff that was saved is in the company of Flagray museum, which houses essentially a lot of the sort of archaeological finds from that area.

It's a very ancient area just in general in Italy, both pre Greek and also Greek to to Roman.

So it's, it's got a lot of interesting things.

It's also I think the company for the gay has a museum that also is dedicated to the, the, the caldera as well.

If we talked about four of these, these giant bubbles underneath the earth that fill up and slowly expand and, and contract and raise and drop the water level and potentially one day going to erupt and cause a massive, massive explosion because we're apparently very overdue for one.

Yeah.

But like more explosion than eruption because I think it's, it's one of these, these, these, it was a scientific website that was looking at and I say it because they said.

Explosion.

They said like a pimple popping.

So I was like, oh, this is fun.

They're like, it's going to be just.

That's what they said on a scientific.

Yeah.

And I was like, I think they're like, how do we explain this to the layperson?

And like you've seen a pimple.

Yeah, I mean, they did it.

I get it.

So because actually the last time it erupted, they found ash from there in northern Russia or just now northern Russia.

So they're like, this is going to be big.

And that's why every time I think people are like, can we like pop it beforehand?

Like is there anything we could do?

And it does pop itself before.

I already hate this pimple thing.

I'm so sorry, I'm moving on.

Yeah, let's not say that anymore.

And it's actually, so it, it became sort of a, a major source of power and influence in Italy.

It was, it's just both when the Romans later were doing the Roman stuff, they were trading, they were kind of fighting.

They were the, the, the Campanian people got together and fought Kumei.

It was this whole, I mean, it was basically this, this sort of epicenter for many, many, many years.

And in fact, a group from there, when it got large enough, went on to found Zinkel, which sounds like an app and I'm definitely mispronouncing it.

Zonclay.

Real place.

It is now called Messina, which is a major port city in in Sienna.

It's out in Sienna.

What in Sicily.

It's actually where you go through on the on the ferry.

If you're going to take the ferry or the boat, you would probably go to Messina.

But it was originally called Zinkel, which I do like that.

It could be Zonclay could be like like Inklet, but for sinkles.

I don't understand, but the two interesting things I found were one or that I thought that I thought were interesting from mythology specifically is a Vernus is a is next to Kumei and in Roman in in specifically Roman Greek mythology.

But even like in like things that are inspired by Greek mythology, such as Dungeons and Dragons, There's a very popular expansion called Descent into a Vernus, which is descent into hell.

And arguably, and it's in Dungeon Dragons, one of the layers of hell is called Avernus.

Somebody who is into Dungeon Dragons is going to actually message me like you got this wrong.

And I'm like, I know it's technically one of the 9 Hells.

I don't know, please don't.

I don't know.

But I don't know that much about Dungeons and Dragons.

I'm sorry.

But it is fascinating to me because actually the Avernus was one of the entrances to the underworld in the, the, the, the Roman Greek times.

Basically, I think Greek and then Rome's are like, yeah, that, that tracks.

We believe that too.

And so was interestingly, a lot of people have heard of the Oracle of Delphi that was a major, she was a major Greek Oracle.

There's also, I cannot remember her name on the top of my head.

There's one she was Turkish, but also a major Greek.

Or is it like Turkish Greek but also major Greek Oracle.

But the Sybil, the basically the Sybil was I think the the word for prophet, prophetess or Oracle.

But essentially the Kumayan Sybil was from Kumaya and basically was immortalized in Virgil's work because Virgil's like this person.

I mean, she's just predicting everything, right?

And everyone's like, oh, so she must be like God tear kind of thing.

And so be she being quite, quite famous.

There's a cave there.

You can visit her cave where she lived whole thing.

You can visit the entrance to the underworld.

She's been painted though also a bunch of times.

She's in the Sistine Chapel.

She's in like Raphael.

All these people in the Renaissance were re inspired by hers.

Added all these paintings, but I thought it was fascinating again, because it's this very tiny area, essentially quite literally like footprint wise, super small that ended up having a massive like political and social effect on literally the the sort of the Mediterranean world basically for a while.

And sort of on that note, sort of related to that note is the is Virgil's tomb.

We mentioned this before on the couple last week's I think episode and it is the IT is not the tumor Virgil necessarily because apparently his ashes were lost sort of misplaced in transit kind of situation.

OK, So what is this it, it was the tumor Virgil.

OK, so Virgil is the we've mentioned he is famous for putting an egg under a castle as well as other things.

Yeah, very famous writer, pretty much that.

I know fag.

Thing, you know, it's like, I've always heard of Virgil, like just in sort of background of like, yeah, Virgil, yeah, yeah.

People like reference him but like.

I had no idea how much Virgil's like the the guy that was like that was oh, yeah, he and I'm like, but again, the every time I look into him, I'm like, oh, it's got to be something I'm missing.

No, no, no writer.

But there's what else?

Come on.

He's just like, oh, this guy's a real wordsmith.

Let me tell you.

He made me feel things.

So I, I mean, I really don't understand.

But point is Virgil's tomb, you can visit Virgil's tomb.

He died in but in DC, which is in where we where the Puglia.

Yes.

So he died in Puglia.

He was burned in Puglia.

Not like to he's that's the one.

Thank you.

He was.

We have different words for that.

Speaking of Ward Smith's, he was.

Cremated, you were a writer.

Not a very good one.

OK, I'm MO Virgil and he was cremated in Brindisi and and transported to to Naples.

He arrived successfully, no words and they basically he wouldn't be buried sort of entombed in his villa in Naples.

And so they did, but what I thought was fascinating is actually gave him a Greek hero funeral rites because anything I didn't, I've learned so much doing this hero English word comes from the Greek word hero, which is essentially Heracles or Hercules, which is the Roman word for it.

But essentially somebody who had A1 godparent and one human parent was a hero.

Modern day like that, that period is a hero.

And so he was considered to have a godparent and given his crazy funeral rites whole thing.

I mean, it's actually you can visit his tomb.

It's in the, I think I wrote it down.

Yeah.

Krypton Anapolitan.

It's these, it's not the catacombs that you mentioned.

It's this underground tunnel that was supposed to connect Naples with Potsuoli.

And because to get there previously, it's a modern day portfolio, used to be called the Portoli.

I think it's Portoli.

And to get there previously it was this weird through the marsh thing as a nightmare.

People hated it.

So they were like, they built all these roads and finally they're like, what if we just went like through the Earth and.

Naples is all about going underground.

I know they love it.

They're really loved it.

And I wonder if like the tufa stones like soft enough or something because I honestly do not know.

I'm like, this is it's a tunnel.

It's not just like a tunnel, It's a tunnel.

They put some work into this.

So if he's actually built buried near or in the not net, not underground, underground, but it's like, I think the tunnel ends technically where his tomb is and part of it is visible.

Not all of it is not all of the tunnel is exploratory.

It's a it's it's, it's one of those things, again, I think they don't really know what to do with.

And it's also they don't want to fall on anybody and collapse.

So they're kind of like, you can visit some of it, not all of it.

That was kind of interesting.

But in so in that's yeah, that's that's sort of just near that.

But he had this tomb outside was a Bay tree, Bay leaf tree, like A and so it was interesting because when Dante the writer died, the, the tree, the Bay tree died, or at least that's what the the ledge as to the legend goes when Dante died, yeah, this Bay tree also died.

And so Petrarch, which is a he's a one of the early humanists.

He's a he's a cardinal.

He's a, excuse me, a monk.

And he was one of the early humanists.

He was a basic one of those people like maybe we should like, I don't know, treat each other better and people are like, you're kind of a bad man.

He planted another Bay tree and overtime people visiting the tomb just would take branches from the Bay tree.

And finally that Bay tree died too, which and.

That's not cool.

This is all been an ad for why overtourism is terrible.

I'm kidding, I'm totally kidding.

No, but so that unfortunately the Bay tree is dead.

So there's no more Bay tree outside of Virgil's temple.

I think nobody is.

Plant a new one.

I think somebody should, right?

And there's no way that everybody took a Bay leaf tree and then like nobody else planted it, right?

That'd be crazy.

Like nobody took us out with like I should plant this to be like this is front.

Anyway, I mean, there's a lot of Bay all over Italy.

We could.

That's what I'm thinking it.

Grows.

Well, let's do it.

Right, we'll contact, we'll plant the tray and then so yeah, So actually inside is still a tripod dedicated to Apollo where there would have been a burning flame, basically would have been tended to a burning flame because as again as as rights of a hero kind of thing.

It's like one of the things.

Underground.

In kind of underground, in, in, in, in the tomb, but not underground.

The tomb's actually quite tall.

It's very weird.

It's hard to explain.

It's kind of like if the ground is, I'm using my hands to explain, which is a really awful way to do so on a only audio method medium.

But essentially it looks like from from the from the photos, because I would like to.

I haven't actually visit.

I'd like to visit that.

It's technically underground, but they kind of carved out the area around it too.

And so his tomb is sticking up sort of like a like a obelisk, like a type thing.

And so inside the tomb is still this, this tripod.

And then during the Middle Ages, they were transporting his ashes and they were all lost.

I do not know what that means.

This, this, this feels like a very awkward conversation to have somebody who's like, so remember when you got me to get the Virgil's ashes?

I lost them.

I don't know if it's kind of

like a U PS: truck or U-Haul truck getting lost in the move, or if it's like a.

He fell off the wagon.

Yeah, I honestly I don't.

Mean that in a silly way, I just.

Think does he have a little chest?

They just fell off and like that's can't be an important one, right?

Like Verge's ashes would have been a bigger more important chest.

So unfortunately he's his ashes are lost and I don't know if they found him.

It sounds like they have not.

It sounds like they have not.

They're not doing a good job.

This is wild looking.

I mean, I looked up a picture to understand the tomb situation.

But it's kind of an interesting.

Yeah, yes, it is like a building that comes out of the ground.

But like but surrounded by ground, Yes, Right.

OK, what I saw was kind of like it was, it was almost the ground around it, if that makes sense.

Darcy is now showing me the photo.

We could do this better, but see what I mean?

Like so around it is like the wall.

Of ground.

Yeah.

So it's essentially the carved around this and left this structure as a tomb.

Yeah, it's fascinating.

Genuinely.

Yeah.

So if you're.

I imagine though, like at the originally it probably would have looked a bit like a like a mausoleum looks these.

Days.

Exactly.

That's probably exact.

That a much better mausoleum.

Virtual mausoleum.

Much better.

Word.

We should pitch that to them, too.

We have a lot of pitches.

We're just gonna search in the mountains, see what happens.

Very much related to Virgil's.

Tomb yes, that's the two of the major ones and I think that that was everything I just thought that was and that was actually much closer again, that is really quite close to to Naples.

That's really not even a day trip, that's like a afternoon trip, but it's something that's fascinating if you're into history or writers or anything at all.

I mean, they're like even the Sybil, the Kumay and Sybil, Sybil of Kumay.

It just seems if you're interested at all in sort of just a basically prophets, prophetesses and people who saw the future and were really popular in her time and you want to go visit her cave, you can do so.

I do want to Let's go.

And the also the entrance to the underworld is right next to that.

I want to maybe look at that one from afar.

Yeah, just in case the lake, I think it was a crater.

It's now like, I'm not really sure how you get the underworld make you go through the water.

That sounds terrifying.

Yeah, it's very unclear.

But there's also like a temple of Zeus there, a temple of Apollo, temple of this was like all these temple.

I mean, it was very much a very, very, very built up powerful place.

And right now, again, it's like these ruins that almost nobody knows about.

There's not.

I mean, in Italy they do.

But I mean, like in the world, it's kind of like, Oh yeah.

But it's.

Interesting.

It's like a major tourist site.

Essentially exactly it was once the seat of and from there again started all these other cities, Naples started from there or Messina started from there and all these other places started from there.

So I think that was kind of interesting where how much, you know, just.

Power was held in that one spot.

Yeah, fascinating.

And again, now it makes sense.

Why the Iliad or excuse me, the Odyssey would have been based the story around there because it was already such a fame.

Because I was thinking like maybe people don't know, but if the entire host it was happening, it's like people love this area.

And also I need to be Virgil.

I assume there's a Homer.

I was thinking, OK, I'm assuming Homer probably came way before Virgil but he's like there's only some guy named Virgil coming after me and I'll get even better than him.

Wow, that's fascinating.

Thank you that was does me just rambling on.

It's really interesting day trips, a lot of them are very close.

Super close, super doable, super easy.

It's also, I mean again, if you have kids or if you're traveling the partner, but I think with kids a lot more kind of interesting.

Like even in Cassetta, I believe there's a Armory.

I didn't mention that as well just because I thought.

But if you want to see like old weapons or like early guns, things like that, they have Armory dedicated all sorts of weaponry.

If you have a.

And how far is Cazarza?

It's about a 45 minutes.

I think it's on the train.

It's about a 45 minutes on the train.

There is also a bus there, but I think the train's easier.

That's something it's that is it's an awkward all day because it's such a big place.

I mean, it's such a big place that even if you're not going to walk the land, it's still going to take a minute to to be there.

So it's a little bit.

I would recommend kind of preparing for that.

Same thing with with Pompeii.

It's it's just functionally smaller than Concerta, but it would but you.

Really, you're going to be there all day.

There.

So actually, so those are those are the major ones.

And the next one we'll talk about Capri, Ischia, Prochita, Sorrento, Posidano, etcetera, etcetera.

Just slipped into a little Italian accent there for y'all.

I did not do a great Italian accent apparently etcetera, etcetera.

Yeah, anyway, thank you all so much for listening.

Thanks for listening, Dante Bracci.