Rome to Taormina - Part 1 Great Continental Railway Journeys

'I'm embarking on a new railway adventure that will take me

'across the heart of Europe.'

I'll be using this, my Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide,

dated 1913, which opened up an exotic world of foreign travel

for the British tourist.

'It told travellers where to go, what to see, and how to navigate

'the thousands of miles of tracks crisscrossing the Continent.

'Now, a century later,

'I'm using my copy to reveal an era of great optimism and energy,

'where technology, industry, science and the arts were flourishing.'

I want to rediscover that lost Europe, that in 1913 couldn't know

that its way of life would shortly be swept aside by the advent of war.

'Italy is possessed of such concentrated beauty

'that it mesmerised the Edwardian traveller.

'But until 1861, Italy as we NOW know it didn't exist.

'It was a jumble of states controlled in part by the Pope

'and largely by great European powers who would relinquish control

'only through defeat in war.

'On today's journey, I'll get a taste of Italian style,

'as I explore Rome on the back of iconic scooter...'

Ma, che bella citta - Roma!

'..blend in with the locals underground...'

No-one would guess that the fellow in the yellow jacket

clutching a red 1930 handbook was anything other than a Roman.

'..and venture into the mighty Vesuvius.'

I don't want to be nervous,

but I can't help noticing that there's a lot of vapour.

I begin in Rome.

British tourists in 1913 were magnetised by its classical history

and its antiquities.

But they could reflect with pride that the British Empire covered

a much vaster area of the globe than the Caesars had ever dreamt of.

The city had become the capital

of the recently formed Kingdom of Italy.

It was also the Eternal City,

the centre of the Roman Catholic Church,

which many Protestant British viewed with suspicion.

From Rome, I'll head southwest through the Apennine Mountains

to Naples,

cross to the glamorous island of Capri.

Heading further south towards the toe of Italy,

I'll visit Messina, gateway to Sicily.

I'll end my journey in ancient Taormina.

Travel for pleasure to cultural centres like Rome

was once the preserve of aristocrats on their Grand Tour.

With the advent of the railways, the middle classes, too,

could afford to see the sights.

ANNOUNCEMENT OVER TANNOY

'We are now arriving at Roma Termini.'

Railways came late to the Italian peninsula

because it wasn't a country.

And Rome wasn't attached to other cities by rail

until the 1860s and 1870s.

This magnificent station was opened in 1950.

It's got this gravity-defying ceiling. It's made of concrete

and a lovely stone called travertine,

so it's that combination of futurism and Italian style.

And what better way to get a taste of Italian style,

'and 3,000 years of ancient history than this?'

Grazie!

This nippy little scooter has given generations of Italian teenagers

a taste of freedom.

Stefano, I love your Vespa. What age is it?

-It is from 1959.

-And it's a good way to see Rome?

This is the best way to see Rome.

Aren't you worried about the Roman drivers?

Ah, the Roman drivers, there are some secret rules

for driving in Rome, you have to know, it's not so terrible.

HORNS TOOT

This really is the perfect way to see Rome -

you see the beautiful sights sweeping by.

And you've no need to worry about the time because we get through

when all the other cars get stuck.

This bumpy cobbled avenue is the Via Conciliazione -

an avenue that gives us such a view

of the Basilica of St Peter's, the cathedral.

My Bradshaw's guide rather pedantically tells me

that it cost £10 million.

Never mind the expense, it's such a beautiful building.

'I can see why the Pope fought against Italian unification.

'He ruled directly over this glorious city.'

You imagine this place filled with pilgrims

and the Pope appearing at the window there.

I feel rather sacrilegious going through it on a Vespa.

So I guess lots of people still come to Rome today

inspired by that old movie, Roman Holiday.

And you would be Gregory Peck - ha! -

and sitting on the back was Audrey Hepburn.

Now I know just how she must have felt,

making a break for freedom on the back of this iconic scooter.

Ma, che bella citta - Roma!

Turin and then Florence had been provisional Italian capitals,

but in 1871, Rome was proclaimed capital of a fully united Italy.

The Edwardian visitor would have observed a Rome

intent on rebuilding and modernising.

I'm meeting Ettore Mazzola,

an expert in urban and architectural history.

-Ettore.

-Buongiorno.

Thank you for bringing me to this vantage spot.

We have the most fantastic panorama of Ancient Rome.

What do you call this particular place?

The Foro Romano is the heart of the Ancient Roman world.

Now, these antiquities really attracted

British travellers at the beginning of the 20th century.

When they came here, would they find this in good condition?

Well, on those days not everything was totally excavated.

The ground was arriving up to the top.

So they engaged in a large excavation of the site,

and in 1913 a large part of this was visible.

The Forum was the centre

of political, commercial and judicial life in Ancient Rome.

It dates back to the first century AD.

The largest building was the basilica.

According to the playwright Plautus, the area teemed with lawyers

and litigants, bankers and brokers, shopkeepers and strumpets.

Many people may be surprised to think now, that Rome wasn't

by any means the first capital of the united Italy.

Was it important that it should become the capital?

It was a rhetorical decision.

Rome was the capital of the Ancient Roman Empire,

the greatest empire of our history.

It was the place where used to be the Christianity

and of course the place of the Pope,

the last barrier to the unification of Italy.

Nevertheless the family of the King was not that happy to be in Rome.

They were calling Rome the filthy, dirty and stinky Rome.

Because, compared to the beautiful French architecture in Turin,

home to the royal family, Rome must have felt like one big ruin.

And so they didn't like the old higgledy-piggledy chaos of Rome.

Indeed. They were absolutely opposed to that.

The King's love of modernity

propelled Rome towards a face-lift.

Major new structures were taking shape.

Well, we are in the very heart of Rome,

and this enormous building, this monument to Victor Emmanuel II,

why was it built here in Rome?

It was built, of course, to celebrate the unification of Italy.

And it was built because when, in 1878,

the King died, they decided immediately to celebrate

the first King of Italy with a super-symbolic monument.

It also emphasised the seismic power shift from the Church to the State.

To accommodate it, a vast medieval district around the Capitoline Hill

had to be demolished.

It was planned in order to hide the monstrosity

of the filthy, dirty Rome.

And what do you think of it?

I think it's a great building still today. As you can see, there are

millions of tourists that are coming here taking photos

of one of the most representative buildings of the period,

across the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

But not everyone is as complimentary.

Romans in particular have variously named it the Typewriter,

the Wedding Cake and the Urinal.

I wonder what today's travellers make of it?

-Hello! How are you?

-Hello! We're fine! It is Mr Portillo!

Very lovely to see you both.

Look, here you are at the Monument of Victor Emanuel II,

which is very large, very prominent in Rome.

I wonder what you think of it.

-Wonderful.

-Marvellous.

-Wonderful.

The sheer scale, it's massive.

Everything is almost... you could say overdone.

As you say, it's brash, but it's exciting to look at.

I like it, but it's not as pretty as the rest of them.

-How are you enjoying Rome?

-Wonderful.

-Excellent.

Anyone pinching your bottom?

-No.

-No, unfortunately not!

You enjoy the city.

It's absolutely evident that one of the most popular places

in Rome for tourists today, as ever, is the Trevi Fountain.

With the tradition that if you throw three coins into the fountain

you'll return to Rome, you'll meet a partner and you'll marry.

The fountain dates back to 1762

and was designed by Italian architect Nicola Salvi.

It's the largest baroque fountain in Rome.

The name Trevi refers to "tre vie",

three roads that converge at the fountain.

And you know what they say - when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

And if the coin doesn't work, well, there's always the selfie.

Rome had once been the capital of a vast empire.

But that didn't make it easy, after 1871,

to unite the very different people

who inhabit the Italian peninsula.

A country can be drawn on a map or conjured up in political rhetoric...

..but the regions of Italy are hugely divergent

and independent minded.

I'm leaving the Roman traffic behind

to head to the stylish Piazza di Spagna.

I'm so glad that I wore my sunglasses -

it just makes me look like a local.

No-one would guess that the fellow in the yellow jacket clutching

a red 1913 handbook was anything other than a Roman.

According to my faithful guide, the Spanish Steps are a good spot

to practise the Italian tradition of the passeggiata - or promenade.

I'm strolling with a purpose, and towards a destination.

Here is the house referenced in my Bradshaw's guide.

"At the foot of the steps in the Piazza di Spagna is the house

"where John Keats died in 1821,

"now used as the Keats And Shelley Museum."

I suppose we are all drawn to the Romantic poets,

with their love of nature and their appreciation of antiquity

and their tragically short lives.

BELL CHIMES

I'm meeting Giuseppe Albano -

the curator of a charming museum dedicated to their memory.

-Well, it is the most spectacular view.

-Absolutely.

What was it that brought John Keats here?

Well, John Keats, like many of his fellow Romantics,

and indeed many generations before him, was very much inspired by Italy.

Rome, of course, was the Holy Grail of the Grand Tour,

a phenomenon which had begun in the century before Keats.

But Keats specifically came here because of his tuberculosis.

He was suffering very heavily. He had already lost his mother

and his younger brother to the disease and he was hoping

that the milder climate, the Roman sunshine would alleviate his health.

It was a vain hope because he died just three-and-a-half months

-after arriving.

-And as he looked from this house,

the Rome that he saw,

would it have been very different from what we see today?

A different Rome, no, not at all.

Some of the buildings have been heightened, some of them

had extensions put on in the 20th century, but essentially the skyline

remains the same, the Spanish Steps were here.

This area became known

in the 19th century as the English ghetto

because so many writers and artists were attracted from England,

drawn by the area's bohemianism.

There aren't many people less poetic than I am,

but this would inspire anybody.

Well, it did inspire Keats, and he liked looking at the views very much.

Unfortunately he was too ill to write, however,

which is the real tragedy.

Born in 1795, John Keats is one of the great Romantic poets,

along with his contemporaries, Lord Byron and Percy Shelley.

They, unlike Keats, were rebellious and radical,

like the rock stars of their day.

Keats's work found popularity

only three decades after his untimely death,

and followers of my guide were fascinated by his tragic story.

As my Bradshaw's tells me,

this house became a museum to both Keats and Shelley.

How did this happen?

The Keats-Shelley Memorial Association was founded first of all

to purchase the house in which Keats died, but also to help protect

the tombs of the poets - both Keats and Shelley -

because they are both buried here in Rome.

Keats died in 1821, aged just 25,

and Shelley a year later, at only 29.

When, in 1903, the house was in danger of being turned into a hotel,

the great and the good fought to save it.

And this is the room in which John Keats died here in Rome

of tuberculosis, on 23rd February 1821.

You can see the ceiling which inspired him to say,

with its flower motifs,

that he could almost feel the flowers growing above his own grave.

Ah, a Romantic poet to the very end.

Until the 1860s, it would have been impossible

for travellers to take a train south.

Railway mania came late to Italy.

Largely because, prior to unification,

there was no political will

to connect the jumble of independent states.

In the years before the First World War,

Britain sought a southern European ally and courted Italy.

Selling trains was a commercial opportunity

which could also create a diplomatic bond.

The pitch was well-timed. The Italians were investing heavily

in public works and were in the market for railways.

According to my Bradshaw's, Naples is the City of Sirens.

Verily "un pezzo di cielo caduto in terra."

A bit of heaven that has tumbled to Earth.

Now, you might think that a ludicrous Neapolitan exaggeration,

but only if you've never been there.

Naples sits beside a staggeringly beautiful natural harbour,

in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius.

The Greeks, Oscans, Romans, Goths,

Byzantines, Normans, Germans

and Britons have all succumbed to its charm.

Bradshaw's has an unbeatable description of this view.

"Naples situated at the base and on the slopes of an amphitheatre

"of hills, on the west side of a magnificent bay,

"is one of the most beautifully situated cities in the world,

"justifying the adage 'vedi Napoli e poi morire' -

"see Naples and then die!"

It is really stunning, but I do hope to survive the experience.

The city of Naples was the most populated in Italy

and one of the largest in Europe.

Visitors might have felt ill at ease

in a city of such pitiable poverty.

A quarter of its half-million inhabitants lived in abject squalor.

The region lagged behind northern Europe

but had experienced some modernisation under King Ferdinand,

who embraced new technology, such as electric telegraphy

and the building in 1839 of Italy's first railway

from Naples to his palace at Portici.

'I'm meeting Professor Augusto Vitale,

'an industrial heritage expert,

'outside the abandoned railway station that once served this line.'

It's interesting that the first railway was built in southern Italy,

which I think of being a rural community, not industrial.

Why was it built in southern Italy?

Well, Naples was the head of a very large and poor country,

but it collected hundreds of thousands of people here,

it was a big market.

And there was a very rich touristic market going to Pompeii

and to the islands and to the Vesuvius.

But before passengers could take the train,

French engineer Louis Bayard had to overcome

the technical challenge of constructing 33 bridges.

By the 3rd of October 1839, the 7.5km track was ready

for the first train ever to run on Italian soil.

Tell me about the inauguration of Italy's first railway.

It was a big event,

because for the first time the people said the smoking machine

going on the iron tracks,

and the attractions were the locomotives

that came from Longridge, Starbuck & Co of Newcastle upon Tyne.

The King was there?

Of course. He took place on the royal carriage,

and after him, 15 carriages with troops and with dignitaries.

On their 11-minute journey, the inaugural passengers

were entertained by the band of the Royal Guard.

How successful did the railway turn out to be?

Well, it was a big success.

In the first year, they had more than one million passengers

going up and down from Castella to Naples.

Giuseppe Garibaldi,

one of the founding fathers of Italian unification,

fought against the foreign powers' controlling of southern Italy

and arrived in Naples by train on 7th September 1860.

The real attraction that drew Bradshaw's travellers

to Naples in 1913 was the ascent of Vesuvius

and the Roman cities entombed by its ashes.

This railway is called the Circumvesuviana,

which means that it goes around the base of the volcano, Vesuvius.

It runs along the tracks of the very first railway in Italy

and it takes people to Pompeii and to Herculaneum -

the towns that were destroyed by the volcano in AD79.

And judging by the many languages that I can hear being spoken

on the train today, it attracts people now from all over the world,

to visit these historic sights and, of course, the volcano.

Vesuvius was infamous for being

one of history's most destructive volcanoes,

and early 20th-century travellers

were drawn to see it with their own eyes.

It had and has the potential to unleash its fearful might again,

as it did as recently as 1944.

But if Edwardians dared the ascent, then so must I.

Luigi.

Most people walk up to the crater of Vesuvius.

I'm very lucky to have my four-wheel drive Fiat

taking us on this bumpy road with these magnificent views.

And all around me there's signs of previous eruptions.

This is the most awesome sight, in the proper sense of the word.

Bradshaw's reminds me that an eruption causing widespread disaster

and the loss of nearly 500 lives began on April 6th, 1906,

just before the guide was written.

But, of course, most famously,

Vesuvius destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii in AD79.

And since I was a child, I've been caught up with, almost haunted,

by the thought of those Romans perishing

as the ash poured upon them.

And now I'm confronted with the very source

of that violent volcanic energy.

Like my Edwardian predecessors, I'll press on into the crater

because somewhere down there is geologist Rossana D'Arienzo.

-Rossana.

-Hello, Michael. Welcome.

-What a fantastic place.

Yeah, welcome to the inside part of the Vesuvio.

In 1913, were tourists routinely allowed to come inside the crater?

Yeah, was allowed to go inside.

In the middle there was a cone,

so they were able to go around this cone.

Then, after 1944 eruption, the cone collapsed and lava went down.

In the place that now we can see, the name is Valle dell'Inferno,

just outside the crater.

-The Valley of Hell.

-Yeah.

Thankfully, Vesuvius is currently dormant,

but lest it should become active again, it's constantly monitored.

I don't want to be nervous about this, but I can't help noticing

that there's a lot of vapour rising today. What is this?

Yeah. What you see is actually vapour.

What you cannot see is a gas.

Scientists have long recognised

that gases dissolved in the earth's molten crust

provide the driving force of volcanic eruptions.

Carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane and sulphurous gases

must be measured and monitored.

I introduce you to Bernadino.

He's our volcanologist.

And he's collecting gas from the inside part of the crater right now.

-Do you want to try?

-I'd love to.

-So pull the syringe.

-Yes.

Yeah. This way.

And then I push in... Ah! And there are all the lovely bubbles.

And you see the gas coming inside?

-I do.

-You see bubbles? Good.

A rise in temperature

and the mix of gases are key eruption warning signs.

If Vesuvius were in a pre-eruptive condition,

the temperature reading could exceed 160 degrees.

-69 degrees.

-Yes.

That seems quite cool for a volcano.

Yeah, because we are on the upper part of the volcano.

-It's a bit hotter downstairs.

-Yeah, exactly.

But can you reassure me that the volcano will not explode

before I reach the bottom?

Yeah. Never mind, you'll be safe.

Thank you.

'On the second part of my journey,

'I'll learn about the true art of pizza...'

BELL RINGS You know Picasso?

-I do know Picasso.

-Yes. You make Picasso, please.

'..confront death and destruction in Messina...'

Modern estimates reckon that perhaps 60 or 80,000 were killed.

'..and be all at sea on my train.'

It's quite alarming that we're actually sailing

while the bow door is still coming down.