Pack onto a ferry at Salerno, grab an outdoor seat and gaze at the passing Amalfi coast until you reach Positano, the cheerful town cascading down a mountainous slope. There for an hourly fee you could sit under a striped umbrella on the beach, or start walking upslope through alleys of tourist shops and cafes serving icy lemon sorbet in actual lemon skins. Or, you can go to the small tourist office and museum MAR Positano and buy a ticket for a completely different experience …underground.
Back in 1 ad the Surrentum (Sorrento Peninsula) area featured prestigious real estate: luxury villas for rich romans, especially desirable after Tiberius retired to nearby island of Capri. One such villa, probably almost a hectare in size, cascaded down terraces to the sea, with gardens, fountain and bath area and at least one lavishly decorated diningroom or triclinium - exactly under present day Positano. Unfortunately the Vesuvius eruption of ad 79 threw up a 20km high column of ashes and pumice which blew south and buried the villa. To make the burial permanent, rain followed and turned pumice to mudslides and rock.
By 10th century there was a Benedictine monastery of St Mary on the site, with a small church.By the early 17th century the much larger Santa Maria Assunta church was rebuilt on top of the previous structure.
Although people had known that a roman villa existed, it was only 2003 renovations to the crypt of the church that revealed what was underneath… not only burial niches still containing the remains of medieval monks, but below that, part of a large roman diningroom with a white mosaic floors and frescoes whose bright colours have been completely preserved so are totally original. Unusually, the frescoes also feature some lively little mythical creatures moulded in white plaster (stucco). The tremendous forces that buried the villa shifted part of one frescoed wall sideways, almost looking like two puzzle pieces misaligned. Some household objects were also found in the rubble.
Years of patient effort to raise funds, work by the local archaeologists to excavate all the rock and build access stairs mean that you can walk down through the medieval crypts then look down onto the 2000 year old room. A museum guide gives a really engageing talk about the roman and medieval eras. Of course there would be more to excavate, but lack of public land in the town above to dig down from, is making that a difficult task for the future.
