Вулкан Везувий над курортом: напоминание о бренности жизни во время роскошного отдыха

For centuries, it was the practice of Stoic philosophers, monks, popes and educated Victorian gentlemen to keep a skull on their desk as a memento mori. A reminder that death is inevitable. An invitation, even in the prime of life, in the midst of their wealth and happiness, to — as one might say today — check their privilege. And, of course, Roman generals retained a slave to stand behind them during victory parades and whisper “memento mori” in their ear — a reminder that they were mortal men, not gods, so should not get carried away. These protocols were not entirely motivated by a grim need to spoil the joy in everything. On the contrary, I think there was a carpe diem element there. A reminder that life is short and to be treasured, that earthly delights are temporary — sic transit gloria mundi — and if you remember that, even as you enjoy them, the pleasure is heightened. And so it is with a holiday on the Bay of Naples. You might not think that a luxury (indeed superluxury) family half-term jaunt to the northern gateway of the glorious Amalfi coast is a time to be thinking about violent death, asphyxiation, melting eyeballs, boiling lungs, mass carnage, total destruction, apocalypse and the end of life as we know it (then again, if you have travelled recently with toddlers, perhaps you might). But here it cannot be avoided. Because wherever you go, Vesuvius is always there, towering above the water, gazing down at the world she consumed so greedily almost 2,000 years ago, grinning contentedly at her work, appearing at times to be suppressing a belch and wondering lazily whether to do it again. With Vesuvius there, you can never truly relax. Never truly take all this for granted. Because one day, when you least expect it… POW! It might all come to an end. Most commented - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 You don’t have to be walking the streets of Pompeii or Herculaneum, poking your noses into the homes and shops and offices and brothels of the many thousands who were killed when the volcano blew on August 24, AD79 to get that sense of your own mortality. But we were, for some of the time, and by God, it drove it home. It was these sites that we had principally come for. My two children are doing Latin and Greek at school and are both embarked upon the Cambridge Latin Course, which has taught generations of English pupils that “Caecilius est in horto”. And the “horto” in question is right here, in Pompeii. As is Caecilius’s domus, of course, with its “Cave canem” sign and the famous mosaic of the dog. Our trip was built around those two obliterated towns and the opportunity to walk their streets with a private guide, dodging queues, avoiding the tourist-packed main drag and finding quiet moments in suburban villas was a timeless privilege that we absolutely appreciated and acknowledged, looking up at the mountain and hoping she would stay quiet. For there were many sombre moments, as when visiting the new permanent exhibition of plaster casts (no longer strewn around the site) that were made by pouring gypsum into the cavities left in the ash after it had solidified around the trapped Pompeiians and their mortal remains had rotted away. But it was a poolside flop-out too — there is only so long a teenager, or indeed a middle-aged man, can spend looking at old stones — and we chose to base ourselves in Sorrento rather than Naples, at the famously exquisite 200-year-old Hotel Grand Excelsior Vittoria. The rooms, the service, the pool, the thread counts, the private express lift that plunges from the breakfast terrace directly to the port below and the boats to Pompeii, Naples and Herculaneum left my generally hard-to-please wife with nothing to say but “no notes”. And yet, in the midst of it, as I nursed a perfect negroni beneath the lemon trees at sundown and contemplated another unforgettable day with my family, there was Vesuvius, high above me, whispering, “Memento mori, Giles. Memento mori.” From the atmospheric roof garden of the nearby Antica Trattoria (£100 a head and full of Americans, but ever so lovely) or the long wooden pier of Ristorante Bagni Delfino down on the beach, with its exquisite sea urchin linguine and seemingly bottomless magnums of Greco di Tufo, one could always see (or sense) the volcano, smoking there (if only in my imagination), saying, “Enjoy it while you can, Giley old man, for you too will die.” Because they all did, those Pompeiians and Herculaneans. Up to 16,000 in total, from great men such as Pliny to middle-class drunks, blasted down mid-beer by the pyroclastic surge, and endless anonymous slaves. One minute they were on holiday with their family, swimming, lunching, studying… The next, only darkness. You cannot help but think of them as you trog round the tourist-solid, clip joint-clustered streets of overrated, billionaire-riddled Capri. Rejected from another two-bit pizzeria because it has all been reserved for a busload of Yanks, you look up at Vesuvius and, rather like Sir John Betjeman with those German bombers over Slough, think, come on then, mountain, do your worst; this lot deserve it. But then you are at the Museo Archeologico in Naples, one of the great museums of the world, walking round the countless rooms of salvaged treasures, reeling at the colours preserved so gleamingly for millennia, and you think, first, my God, art didn’t get this good again until the Renaissance. Then you think, what a paradox. Without the eruption, all this would have been lost. (The thick layers of ash and pumice that destroyed Pompeii also protected and preserved its treasures, as if in aspic.) And then you think, please, Vesuvius, don’t do it again. Which you also think when you climb her, with your guide, and circle the rim, looking out across the deep caldera she has had since the huge eruption in 1944 blew off her top. It’s a good walk, a hard walk, and just what you need on a holiday where every second meal is pizza (good pizza, yes, occasionally great pizza, but still pizza). And then you are standing on the balcony of the Excelsior with your 12-year-old son and a cold beer from the minibar, looking out across the bay, and he says, “Dad, if Vesuvius erupted now, would it kill us here?” And you think, meh. You know what? If it did, it wouldn’t matter all that much. I’ve had a good life and this has been a good holiday and death comes to us all in the end. But you say, “No, son. We’re miles away. We’d be fine.” And you go downstairs for a 50 quid bowl of pasta and a splash in the pool. But then you lie there on your sunlounger, drying off, and you cannot help thinking, I hope I’m right. Because one minute you’re lying by the pool with your beautiful children and a cold glass of Greco and the next minute, some student archaeologist is pouring plaster of Paris into the hole you left behind. Abercrombie & Kent can arrange a four-night trip, B&B, at the Hotel Grand Excelsior Vittoria, with a private driver, guide and concierge, from £21,500 for two adults and two children, excluding flights, abercrombiekent.com