The key to Italy this spring was Climate Change. Climate Change in the form of water. You may have read about it on-line, seen it on television, heard about it on the radio. Some of you may still be enjoying your news stories in print, through the medium of daily papers or magazines. However you choose to take your news, in Italy this spring, it was taken with water. In some areas, the equivalent of over half the annual rainfall descended in just two days. Flooding and mud slides caused catastrophic damage, thousands were forced to leave their homes and at least 13 people died. The Irish Times of 23rd May, put it succinctly: “They [the floods] are a warning too for other Europeans that potentially catastrophic climate change induced by human action is here to stay on the continent.”(https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorials/2023/05/23/the-irish-times-view-on-the-aftermath-of-the-italian-floods-a-warning-for-europe/). Will we never heed these warnings?

Terroir visited la bella Italia last month, although we were well south of the worst hit areas in the centre of the country. Thankful as we were to miss the flooding, being rained on everyday does drive home the climate change message. The picture at the top of this post was one of the best views we managed from Mount Vesuvius: a quick click of the camera as the clouds parted for just a few seconds.

But there were some more photographic friendly moments, so we are sending you four picture postcards from Southern Italy.

Greetings from the National Railway Museum of Pietrarsa. 

Located between Naples and Portici, this museum is pretty much the perfect place to spend a wet morning and a damp lunch time. 

The buildings represent the pinnacle of railway locomotive engineering ambition of the Bourbon King Ferdinand II, King of the two Sicilies. Aiming to promote home grown Italian industry and technology, the new railway works commenced in 1842 and became the Swindon of Italy, employing 1,100 workers by the middle of the 19th century (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Railway_Museum_of_Pietrarsa).  5 pavilions dedicated to engineering lie on the very edge of the Bay of Naples.  We’ll take a look outside when it stops raining. 

Inside the ‘Cathedral Pavilion’ (below centre) lies a collection of steam powered beauties, all painted black and all polished to perfection.  And, apparently, all constructed prior to 1930.  Where’s the newer stuff?  Apparently there isn’t much as the, by now unified, Italy started on electrification much earlier than Britain.  We assumed this was due to less coal and oil but significant early hydroelectric generation. 

Welcome to Pompeii in the spring

How often do you see an internationally famous archaeological site smothered in wildflowers?  Visiting in May obviously ups your chances but we did wonder if the visual feast we encountered would scare the life out of some British archaeologists.  Spring time fields of ‘Tuscan’ poppies (they probably came originally from North Africa) are a feature of the Italian landscape and we assume that Pompeii’s contribution is also the Tuscan variety.  To Terroir, however, poppies suggest regularly disturbed ground so, yes, this spectacular display did leave an archeologically worrying after taste. 

We were also travelling without an Italian flora (why, oh why?) so help, please, in identifying the crevice loving ‘snapdragon’ (below left and centre): garden escape?  Sicilian snapdragon?  Comments in the box below or by email please. 

Oh, and bottom right, that’s a Wall butterfly, on a wall.

Views of Vesuvius - the Vanishing Volcano

As it happened, we also visited Etna but it rained so hard when we got there that we had to retreat.  Etna’s snowline had advanced downhill between our arrival and our departure.  It was the 16th of May.

Back on Vesuvius, the famous Bay of Naples view was totally obscured. 

But we could see the track under our feet and could follow the gradation of vegetation colonising the lava slopes. No doubt the colour of the lava, elevation, aspect and degree of shelter make a difference, but a pattern is clearly defined. In the most inhospitable areas the lichens and mosses start off the process of plant colonisation and soil making.

Next come the tough, clump forming, herbaceous invaders, where the substrate is less vertiginous and the lava is more like gravel than bare rock. Here are docks, artemisia/wormwood, red valerian and chamomile (botanists - do correct me if I’m wrong!)

Finally as the pioneer species begin to create more recognisable ‘soil’ the plants begin to coalesce and become more varied, until shrubs such as broom can get a toe hold and a scrub and young woodland habitat starts to form.

Further down the slopes, where you would expect woodland, something else has been going on. Wildfires have always been a presence but it seems their number and impact (world wide) has been increasing, probably due to human impact (intentionally or unintentionally), exacerbated by climate change. A big fire affected these slopes of Vesuvious in the last few years. The ground flora and broom has grown back under the woody skeletons but other shrubs and trees are taking longer to establish.

Not the Boat Train but the Train Boat!

Remember when trains went on boats?  One of Team Terroir can remember travelling on the ‘Night Ferry’, an iconic train which ran from London Victoria to Dover, then by ferry to Dunkirk and finally on to Paris Gare du Nord.  The service was axed in 1980, but other European train ferries continued to function.  Today, only two remain in Europe, a freight line from Germany to Sweden and a passenger train from the toe of Italy to Messina in Sicily.