Once again, thanks to Roseann we decided to take the train into Pompeii and Naples instead of trying to drive. We took an early train and arrived at Pompeii around 10am. Amanda had never been to any ancient ruins before so I was excited to talk to her about them. In one of my classes, we have been learning about the style of the houses and what each room is called. The pamphlet said that if you were to do Pompeii correctly, it would take 5-6 hours! We didn’t know what we were looking at half the time, so it only took us around 2.5 hours. A lot of the exhibits were closed so we weren’t able to see some of the main things. I’m not sure what year the volcano exploded, but the city was founded in the 7th century BC. When Mt. Vesuvius erupted, all the ash came down on the city and because it was so hot it hit the people and preserved them in place. They have some of the people on display and it’s a little disturbing because they all have their mouths open from when they were screaming from the pain. The city was covered in ash, and it is the most well-preserved cities of the ancient world. If the ash had never covered the city, they would have never seen all of the artwork or have the buildings still in place. They had an amphitheater that held 20,000 people and was used for gladiator battles. They also had a small theater, large courtyards, and very large houses for the wealthy. Because we didn’t get a map, we missed two of the main things, the bath houses, and the house with a lot of preserved people in it. We were there for a while, but it was a city, so we need a little credit because we covered a lot of ground in 2.5 hours. Also, on the way out, we managed to get lost somehow and that’s what took up most of our 2.5 hours. If we wouldn’t have gotten lost though, we wouldn’t have seen so much, so it was a good thing. After seeing all the bodies and preserved city, we decided to go see what caused all of it to be preserved….Mt. Vesuvius!
We hopped on the train onto the next stop…Ercolano. This is the town where the volcano is located. For $10 Euro, there was a bus service that brought us to the top ( or so we thought). The bus held 7 and we fit 9! I didn’t have a seatbelt and I was only halfway on the seat and I was right next to the sliding door, that wasn’t shut all the way! Amanda was trying to hang onto me because the road on the way up was really windy and bumpy. So with no seatbelt, and nothing to brace myself on, we began our journey to the top of Mt. Vesuvius. They stopped a couple times along the way so that we could take pictures and after about a half hour, we reached a parking lot. We got out and then they informed us that we only had a half-hour hike left! Amanda and I had not dressed for hiking, but we were there so of course we did it. Once again we stopped many times along the way to “take pictures” Once we got to the top, the view was BELLISSIMA! It overlooked the Bay of Naples and we could see both the small town of Sorrento, and the chaotic city of Naples. It was a little chilly up top with the wind, but the view was so beautiful that we didn’t care. We looked into the top of the still active volcano, but all that is left is a closed crater. The last eruption was in 1944 and it destroyed 2 towns. For some reason, people have built their homes, restaurants, and hotels on the side of the volcano. I guess they don’t think the insurance coverage is too expensive. Amanda had thought that we were going to see lava when we looked down into it LOL!! I informed her that we probably wouldn’t be allowed to look into it if that was the case. We did see all the steaming rock though and that was cool. We were following some tour guides around and eves-dropping on their conversations. They were saying that before the last eruption, you could see the open volcano with lava inside. We were intrigued for a while but then we got too cold so we headed down the mountain and into Napoli for some exploring. When we first got into Napoli we went and saw its Duomo. It was very pretty and it had the biggest confessional that I have ever seen! We were joking about how Naples needed a big confessional because of all the crime committed there. We walked around the city for a while and tried going down by the water but it was all industrial where we were so we opted out of watching the sunset. Naples is the birthplace of pizza as we know it today! A local cook wanted to make something special for the new Italian Queen (Queen Margherita) who was visiting Naples at the time. The cook took flat bread and placed a sauce on top with mozzarella cheese and basil. He used these toppings because they were the colors of the Italian flag…and viola PIZZA!! Naples is said to have the best pizza, so we of course got a bottle of wine and a classic Margherita Pizza to split. The pizza was really good, but I think that most other Italian cities have caught on to the recipe because it tasted like the pizza I have in Rome. We couldn’t find much else to do in Napoli and since we weren’t staying there for the night any more, we took the train back to Sorrento.
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