"The Breath of the Lord, like a
stream of brimstone..."
- Isaiah xxx, 33.
Somewhere there's a German—(is that a song
title?)—who, if he ever thinks of me at all,
remembers me simply as as the joker who gave him a
bum steer (taurus impecuniosus) about the
Fiery Fields of Naples, the Phlegrean Fields, the
Campi Flegrei. We were sharing a metro
carriage, stopped and apparently wintering over in
Fuorigrotta, when I noticed a young man with an
Erich von Stroheim scalpcut, dueling scar and
monocle, humming The Ride of the Valkyries under
his breath and holding a guidebook to Naples
upside down. I approached and asked in my best
Gothic, "Are you please to be in dire straits of
information, nicht
wahr? "
"Zese are ze Phlegrean Fields, ja?"
he snapped.
"Uh, yeah," I said, in that authoritative
Baedecker baritone that is well-known to those who
know and love me, for I, too, had seen the Campi
Flegrei sign on the station platform.
Spent by the intimacy of conversation, he clicked
his heels and got off in gratitude. (I was later
to get off in Bagnoli). As we pulled out, I
noticed him noticing that he was surrounded
by Fiats and cement. I last saw him
dolefully rummaging through newsstand post-cards
looking for exploding volcanoes and similar stuff
that had made Goethe swoon, sturm und drang
150 years earlier.
I now know that I put young Siegfried
off the train at least two stops too early.
(Who could blame him if he has since dedicated
his life to taking revenge on unsuspecting
tourists by standing outside the Black Forest
Gasthaus in the middle of Hamburg and telling
them, "Why, sure, the headwaters of the Danube
are right over there. It says "Black Forest,"
doesn't it? Heh-heh-heh.")
Monte Nuovo and
Lake Lucrino in the Campi Flegrei
The Campi
Flegrei is a cauldron of volcanic origin
extending from the heights of Posillipo in the south
to Cuma in the north and
inland a number of miles. It is a welter of
extinct craters, bubbling sulfur pits,
underground thermal springs, skewed hills and
sudden jagged upcroppings of tufa and solidified
lava.
The best way to see this geological freakshow as a
single unit is to get some high ground. Parco
Virgiliano is ideal for this. The park is on the
Posillipo ridge overlooking the island of Nisida and
offers a clear view over to the other side of the bay,
Cape Miseno, and inland to the Astroni, which is the
wildlife reserve and park above Agnano. Lake
Miseno, by the way, was an important port for the imperial Roman fleet. There
is a lighthouse on the cape, a modern descendant of
the one that guided Roman sailors. The highest point
in the Phlegrean Fields is Camaldoli.
It is home to a hermitage, prominently visible from
anywhere in the area, perched as it is, 458 meters
above sea-level. It is open to visitors and offers
another clear and broad panorama of the Fields.
Monte Nuovo (see photo), near Arco Felice,
is
another
remarkable
feature
of
the
Campi Flegrei. The name means "new mountain"
and is entirely appropriate. It was born in a matter
of days, beginning early in the morning of September
29, 1538. In geological terms, mountains don't
come much newer than that, or if they do, try to be
elsewhere when it happens. A Geographical
Dictionary of the Kingdom
of the Two Sicilies published in Naples in
1816 recounts that the eruption destroyed a local town
and a hospital. It also cites the proverbial wisdom
that "grass doesn't grow on Monte Nuovo," then points
out how off the mark that bit of folk wisdom is —
there is grass, not to mention trees, all over Monte
Nuovo, says the encyclopedist.
(See the main article on Monte
Nuovo.)
(For a separate item on the geology of the Bay of
Naples, click here.)
Solfatara is the ever bubbling
sulfur pit just south of Pozzuoli;
it is one of the greatest tourist attractions in the
area. Sulfur fumaroles vent themselves all over the
place, and you may see entire families out for a
Sunday stroll suddenly stop and run over to one and
stick their heads right into the stygian stench. These
are not practitioners of some cult of Neo-Nasal
Masochism, for besides use in vulcanizing rubber,
making matches, gunpowder, insecticides and
industrial-grade brimstone to pave the "broad way to
destruction" with, sulfur has putative healing powers,
so if the stuff shoots up right beside the road, free
for the snorting, why should you pay for the privilege
at one of the many spas around town?)
Also, if someone has told you to go to Hell recently,
Lake Averno is
on the left as you leave Pozzuoli and head north up
the via Domiziana. From World Literature, you
will remember that this is the mythological descent to
the underworld, mentioned by Virgil
in the Aeneid. Speaking of which: Cuma, home to Aeneas after his
wanderings and the first Greek settlement on the
Italian mainland, is the last prominent "bump" on the
Phlegrean landscape before it smooths out onto the
plain that goes north towards Gaeta. If there is room
for only one cultural "must" on your list, there is
something wrong with you, but, anyway, Cuma is it. For
those of you who fall into the psychological trap of
telescoping all ancient civilizations into one
convenient mind-frame (as in: "the ancient Egyptians,
Greeks and Romans"), remember that two thousand years
ago, an ancient Roman stood where you are standing and
marveled at Cuma because the ancient Greeks had built
it.
The Campi Flegrei have fascinated travelers for
centuries. When Charles Dickens was here, he
said:
"The fairest country in
the world is spread about us. Whether we turn
towards the Miseno shore of the splendid watery
amphitheatre, and go by the Grotto of Posillipo to
the Grotta del Cane (Dog) and away to Baiae, or
take the other way, towards Vesuvius and Sorrento,
it is one succession of delights."
A less poetic view of the Grotto of the Dog is
provided by Mark Twain, who claimed he was all fired
up to really try and suffocate one of man's best
friends in the Grotto's famed noxious vapors. He
couldn't manage to chase down a victim. [Click here for that
Mark Twain passage from The Innocents Abroad.]
I'm not going to tell you where that particular place
is. Find it yourself. Look for the metro stop that
says Campi Flegrei. Then, ask a
stranger.
[Also see Mar 2009 update: "The
Baia Castle and the Museum of the Campi Flegrei".]
[Also see The Big Archie.]
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