A City of Ash and Dust

“Oh, time will pass, men will move on, and stories will fade. But one day, Pompeii will be found again. In thousands of years. And everyone will remember you.” (This is from Doctor Who)

 Chillin' in the hotel, trying to figure out the metro

We went on our first independent trip this weekend and it was quite the adventure.  Three other students and I woke up nice and early on Friday morning to catch the train to Naples, which arrived at about 10am.  After a brief wait for our room to be ready, we dropped our stuff and headed out into the city to see the sights.  The metro took us to the coast, where we spent the afternoon looking out over the crystal clear waters of the Mediterranean.  Climbing out onto a bolder break line, we had an amazing view of the water, the city, and Mount Vesuvius. Of course, the boys wasted no time sprinting to the end of the rock shelf, jumping over holes and around some sleeping people to make it to the end.  I didn’t feel like breaking myself or my camera just to get to the end of the break line, however.

We took a break from the coast to have some lunch.  Naples is supposedly famous for its thin crust pizza, which was really good, but probably not the best that I’ve ever had. We ate in a restaurant by the park, which was surprisingly cheap considering how upscale the interior appeared.  Afterwards, we walked to a castle that stands on a tiny island out in the Mediterranean that you can access by a short bridge.  After reaching the top, we had another amazing view of Naples and the water. 

“Wait a minute. One mountain. With smoke. Which makes this...” “Pompeii. We're in Pompeii. And it's volcano day!” (This is also from Doctor Who…)

Well, it may not have been volcano day, but it was Pompeii day! We took the (very delayed) metro to Pompeii on Saturday morning.  We paid our entrance fee, grabbed a couple maps, and entered the city. We walked straight to the Amphitheater, which is at the back of the city, and worked our way forward.  A lot of the city was closed off for construction and restoration, probably because it isn’t tourist season right now.  We spent about 4 hours in the city, wandering along the pathways and into various buildings.  Thankfully, it was a bright and warm day, which made for excellent exploration weather.  We hit some of the highlights of the city, including the temple of Jupiter and Gladiator Arena. 

Finding the infamous brothel, on the other hand, was a bit more of an adventure.  In the maps, there is no location entitled brothel, so we finally decided to ask someone.  Michael, who actually speaks decent Italian, approached one of the security people in the park and started trying to explain brothel in Italian.  Thankfully, before he dug himself into too much of a hole, the woman said that she spoke English and pointed us in the right direction.  The brothel is called the Lupanare, in case you ever get to Pompeii.  It’s a very small building near the arena, and it has some interesting frescoes as well as stone beds.  There was an American family in the building with us, which proved to be very entertaining.  They had a son, about 10 years old, who declared that he didn’t understand the point of the building.  Everyone started to laugh, and his mother told him that he didn’t need to know. 

The Garden of the Fugitives

Fresco from inside of the Lupanare

View of Vesuvius from within the city

Our last day in Naples was volcano day!  We left our hotel around noon and traveled to Ercolano, which is where you can catch a minibus up the mountain to the trail to the crater (It’s only €20).  Now, all the research that we had done told us that the hike up the mountain would only take about 20 minutes and we had 90 minutes until our taxi came back to get us.  Plenty of time, right? WRONG.  Try climbing up a 45 degree or more incline on gravel and sand for over a mile.  We were dying.  Admittedly, none of us were wearing the best shoes in the world, either, but still.  It took us about 30-40 minutes to reach the top of the mountain and another 20-30 to reach the end of the trail around the crater.  Unfortunately, it was cloudy so we couldn’t see much, but hey, we made it to the top of Vesuvius.  We looked around at the little gift shop at the end of the trail, picking up some souvenirs, before realizing we only had about 20 minutes to make it back down the mountain. Now that hike is the part that you CAN do in only 20 minutes.  We slipped and slid our way back down the mountain, somehow managing to stay on our feet the entire time.  By the time we reached the bottom, our shoes were filled with gravel, but we were on time.  However, our taxi driver wasn’t (he was running on Italian time). 

 All in all, it was an amazing weekend.  We saw the Mediterranean, walked the streets of Pompeii, and trekked the slopes of Vesuvius.  That’s not something everyone can say, now is it!