Naples, Pompeii, Mt. Vesuvius, Sorrento, and Rome (phew!) (September 10, 11, 12, 13)

Sunset in Sorrento over Mt. Vesuvius

I'm sitting in the Rome Airport, getting ready for my overnight stay in, according to Sleeping in Airports, Europe's runner up for worst airport to spend the night in. But I have come prepared! Upon recommendations, I have set myself up on the second floor of Terminal 3 and managed to get a double chair where the armrests have been ripped off so to create a nice place to lay down! Tomorrow EARLY I have a flight to Athens, Greece, where I will be with my friend Carol on a 10 day Greece side trip before returning to Italy for more helpx work (hopefully the olive harvest!)

Since I last wrote I have left Michael's, headed south to Naples, visited Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius, toured around Sorrento with a random Fairhaven alumni encounter, and had a nice walk around memory lane in Rome. This post will start with leaving Michael's place. The post below (before) this one is a wrap up of Michael's, so scroll down if you want to start there.

Naples - October 10

All the books say to have caution in Naples, it's supposed to be the more dangerous city in Italy, with a very high unemployment rate and home of the powerful Camorra mafia. But frankly, I found the place fascinating and didn't feel any more danger than I would in any regular city anywhere I've been back home in the states. Albeit I stuck to the recommended route, but Naples, I highly approve! Of course, everything seemed a bit more grimy, not so polished clean like Florence, but people actually seemed to *live in Naples* (i.e. most people didn't seem like tourists).

And so first I took the metro to the National Archaeological Museum, which houses most the relics recovered from Pompeii and Herculaneum, the two town covered, and preserved, when Mt. Vesuvius erupted August 24, A.D. 79. After seeing Pompeii, I'm definitely glad I went to this museum, seeing the actual statues, pots, jewelry, silverware, murals, etc... from the site. I also went into the "Secret Room" which houses the murals and objects from Pompeii that are, well, quite scandalous! Let's just say that if we think entertainment is all over-sexualized now, we've got nothing on these Pompeii people!

And then I walked, exploring these really cool side streets which these fascinating little shops where people built these wonderful little model villages, street venders selling figurines for manger scenes (and you can buy a figurine of just about anyone imaginable, little masked, jester looking pizza making figurines, peppers, insence, cards... These tiny little streets, with little sunlight were quite mysterious feeling, something that I have only seen in movies or read in books, but not something I had ever experienced and felt in real life. Residents in this area are supposedly verry superstitious, and it definitely came through when I was walking around. I will have to come back again and spend some more time because I want to figure out that feeling I was getting!

The mysterious village models, complete with little figurines, not pictured.

And then I reached the main drag, but not before stopping by "L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele," Naples' arguably more famous pizzeria, which is saying something in the city where pizza originated, and then eating some gelato from Polo Nord Gelateria, Naples' oldest gelateria. Oooh I hadn't had gelato in two weeks! Withdrawals!

Pizza from the famous Antica Pizzeria Da Michele.
Inside were old pictures of the family throughout the years,
with one exception: A big photo up front of Julia Roberts eating
Antica pizza in Eat, Prey, Love.

And farther South.....the ancient ruins and the culprit.
After the afternoon in Naples I went down to Seven Hostel, just outside of Sorrento and my home for the next three nights. (Okay y'all, if you can manage to book a 10 person dorm here, wow it's worth it! This place is more like a nice hotel with a great community atmosphere, serves food at night while projecting great live music performances on the wall (oooooooh including a very earnest Bonnie Tyler singing Total Eclipse of the Heart. (which is a bit of an inside joke for those in the know!) Oh, and for THIS.

Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius - October 11

What would have been the city square,
with Mt. Vesuvius looming in the background

The next day I got up and did my ancient ruin tour day. Pompeii had always fascinated me since I was a child, so it was a little surreal to actually be there! When I arrived, I decided to go ahead and take a bus up to Mt. Vesuvius and hike to the top of the crater. My first volcano hike! The higher I got up there, the more windy it got, but it was worth it to stand up there and think about how in a matter of moments, this crater was formed when it blew it's top and stopped civilization below in it's tracks. I will have to say though that after living under the shadow of Cascades volcanoes, when I first saw Mt. Vesuvius I couldn't help but have a momentary thought of 'that's it?!'

Looking from atop Mt. Vesuvius
over the Bay of Naples

But Mt. Vesuvius is still considered an active volcano, last erupting in 1944, and scientists think it could go again at any time. It's amazing how civilization keeps going though under all these different threats of natural disaster. We'll still build right up to the volcano, hoping that it will remain in slumber while we're around!

We then headed back to Pompeii - And what can I say about it?! It turns out, the town that was stopped in it's tracks in A.D. 79 was a town not so unlike the ones we know today. This bustling city of 20,000 had a central workout gym, a town square, city hall, theatre, bars, brothels, stores of all sorts of varieties, and even their version of McDonald's. , fast food restaurants all over town where people would come, sit down, and eat out of bowls of quick served, cheap food. The average person couldn't afford to have a kitchen at home so there you have it!

Fast food, 2000 years ago.
People would sit here and a big bowl would be
served full of fast, cheap food.

Seeing everything in a city that stopped in it's tracks was a bit overwhelming. There is so much! And of course the molds of the bodies. I stood and stared at one just thinking that this mold had captured the last second of emotion of this person's life. And I wondered what that thought was. Apparently when they were doing excavations, they could find pockets of air, which were created when the bodies fully decomposed.

The last moment of a life.

But I think the thing that brought the place to life the most more me (and actually I talked to someone else who thought the same thing) was the tracks on the roads made from years of cart wheels going on them. Something about seeing these grooved tracks just made the whole city come to live, really making me aware that this place was a living, well populated city of people who had lives of their own.

Even the painted walls were preserved

This was a a major bakery. The big pots were were wheat was ground and on the left is a woodfire oven, not much different from today.

Stones in the road:
Pompeii flooded it's streets every night to wash away
the grime, so stones were placed for people to hop across.
Three stones meant a major thoroughfare - at least
two carts could pass side by side.

And so that was Pompeii. It's funny because after awhile all these old ruins become so habitual, it's easy to get a little jaded. Oh yeah, that's only from 100 A.D., that's nothing.... ha!! I have to remind myself not to get to by like a European who just walks by all these things like they are nothing and remember to keep up my wonder and fascination of it all! Not hard to do, just need a little reminder now and then! Weird to actually be at this place that I had read about in the history books as a kid! But there it is and now on to.....

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Sorrento - October 12
Lemon Day! Fairhaven Day! Discovering I know how to properly ask for things at restaurants/gelato shops in Italian Day!

Looking out from Sorrento,
Mt. Vesuvius once again in the background

Each morning here I would get up not knowing if I should do the hostel's private boat tour to Capri. And each morning I would go downstairs not knowing what I would do when I got to the desk, then finding myself walking out the door and toward the train station. And so today I did this very thing, and therefore caught the train to the center of Sorrento. And then when I arrived, I thought that I should go to the ferry area and see about getting a regular ferry to Capri today. Finding that the price would be just about what the hostel's private boat tour would be, I kicked myself a little inside, and then resigned myself to just spending the day exploring the town, which as it turns out was the most excellent way to spend the day.

Finding a fellow Fairhaven alum! ~
And so I just wandered around, perusing the little shops, accidentaly going on a scarf buying spree since they were so inexpensive, and then, upon Rick's recommendation, going to this great hole in the wall restaurant for a late lunch. Which turned out to be the best possible thing, not only because the service was so great and friendly, but because while sitting there this couple sat down next to me who were from Santa Barbara, California. We struck up a conversation and the guy happened to mention that they had been in Seattle visiting his father. I said that went to school north of there in Bellingham. He then said that he graduated from Western, so I responded so did I, and then said 'well, Western, but really a school within it called Fairhaven.' He leaped out of seat came over to me and gave me a big hug. Fellow alumni! Brian Sarvis, class of 1972! (one of the first Fairhaven graduating classes) We talked about Fairhaven, and it was good to hear how he felt the interdisciplinary education had helped him over the years with his various careers. I just love these kind of random encounters, this one particularly! Yay for Fairhaven College!!

(Also by the way, today in Athens, while walking in the big central garden I walked right by two girls that I had stayed with in the hostel here in Sorrento. I looked back at them and they kind of looked at me and then we just laughed and said hello again and then went on our separate ways! We are all on our paths on the universe and seems that sometimes we ride the same path for awhile with people and then we'll eventually go off on our own again. I'll probably never see those two girls again, but what are the odds of meeting them in Sorrento, Italy and then again here in Athens, Greece?!)
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A walk down memory lane - Rome - October 13

**For those of you who don't know, when I was an exchange student in Belgium I went on a trip organized by my exchange program, AFS, where all the exchange students in French speaking Belgium went to Rome for a week. Hence Rome not being high on my schedule priority this trip.

And so I had an afternoon in Rome. After walking in what I have determined to be pretty much a 360 circle through some random neighborhoods southeast of the train station, I decided to relent and pull out the maps for reference. Finally making my way to the Piazza Venetizia an hour later in what should have been a short and direct walk, I started out on the road that would get me to Campo di Fiori, the starting point for Rick Steves' recommended 'night walk around Rome.' Well, have you all ever been in a city and realized that everything is much closer together than you think they are? I don't know how many times I have experience this, but apparently I still have not got it in my head. Because I took off on the road Emmanual II, walking and walking, again not looking at the map because I thought I had to walk awhile, and then I came to the Tiber River. aaaaaaahhhhh..... again I had managed to walk WAY to far. So again I had to backtrack. And by the time I made it to Campo di Fiori, I had managed to walk a good part of the afternoon and not seen a single Roman ruin! I would say that is quite the accomplishment in Rome!

The Pantheon - after finally finding my way!

But when i did finally make it to Campo di Fiori, immediately my day got better. Evening was setting in, wonderful activity was starting up after the afternoon siesta, (Oh yeah have I mentioned that it is pointless to try to buy anything at just about anytime in the afternoon here in Italy because most likely the store will be closed for siesta time.), and street musicians were starting to set up for an evening of entertainment.

And so I started my walk and arrived at Piazza Navona. And stopped - because woah, all the memories of this piazza came flooding back from when I was here in Rome for out week long trip that all the exchange students in southern Belgium. The first moment I had of this is when I arrived at Piazza Venetizia, but here at Piazza the memories were strong - hanging out here every day by the fountain watching the street performers, buying gelato from a gelato shop in a little side street (yep, it was there!). I have a strong visual memory, so when I arrived here, the visual of this place brought back a lot of that trip ten years ago.

And from there on out, each site was a great walk down memory lane. Hanging out at the Trevi Fountain with Meng, my friend from China, all of us sitting on the Spanish Steps listening to people play guitar, etc... etc...

The only difference this trip is I had my handy Rick Steves guide book to give me some history of each site and point out the best gelato places! :-)

And so that was my afternoon/evening in Rome. I'm not sure if I will spend more time here or not, but having this afternoon to re-explore was a great experience. I'm glad I did it!
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