This week we had our ‘South Trip’ to Paestum, Pompeii, Naples, Sorrento, and the Isle of Capri. The trip started Wednesday (yay no school!) This was by far the best week in Italy. I got to see two of the most famous sites of ancient ruins, go on two amazing hikes, enjoy warmer weather/sunshine, and finally see the sea.
Our trip started with a bus trip from Orvieto to Paestum where we were free to walk around the site for 2.5 hours. I was shocked by the freedom we had to just walk amongst the ruins without worrying about staying on the path and off the ruins. The site was a lot bigger than I expected which was nice because I had time to just wander and not run into anyone. What shocked me the most was the size of the temples that are still standing. I cannot even imagine how the massive stones of the columns were stacked on top of each other (I’m still convinced the aliens helped!). After wandering around the site a few of us went to the museum they had which was cool, we kind of zoomed through it because it was close to time to go. The museum did have an amazing view of the mountains. The best part of this visit was that the sun behaved and stayed out the whole time, weaving in and out of beautiful clouds and then setting on the horizon creating a beautiful sunset as we left on the bus.
We drove to Pompeii to the hotel. We split into rooms, I stayed with Katie Gallagher Ashley Simpson, the two girls I’m going on Spring Break with (I’ll tell you about that later!) We got situated in the room and headed back to the lobby to wait for the group dinner that the hotel was putting on for us. Because it’s the off season, we pretty much had the hotel to ourselves and most of the restaurants in town are closed. We had pasta and veal (first time eating that). After dinner we pretty much just crashed, it was a long day.
Thursday was our trip to Pompeii and the Archeological museum in Naples (which was supposed to be Friday but our trip to Vesuvius after Pompeii was cancelled because the park was closed. This turned out to be a huge blessing!) We walked from our hotel to the Pompeii ruins where we met Pasquale our guide. He was a cute Italian from Pompeii who must have learned English from an Irishman because of his accent. The tour was very good, it was interesting how similar the life of the Pompeian’s was to modern times. They had storefront shops, roads with crosswalks (granted the cobble stones they used were the size of a large suitcase), and they had pipes for water and sewage. What made the site so impressive was that we saw some places where excavation had just begun, where the rooms were still filled with 25 feet of ash. Seeing the vastness of what is currently excavated makes me appreciate the delicate work of archeologists even more. After the tour we had a quick lunch and then headed back to the hotel where we were going to get some hiking gear on to walk around Vesuvius. Unfortunately the park was closed because of ice! Ice on a volcano? Geez.
After some quick calls to the travel agent, Serena at Centro Studi, and the museum, we found out we could do our trip to the Archeological Museum in Naples instead. The bus ride through Naples was all I needed to see of the city. It was dirty, busy, and too fast for me. I’m glad we didn’t have to spend any more time there than the museum. I’m sure it has it’s good points, but none that I saw. The museum was pretty interesting, but I’m glad we didn’t wait till Friday to go, it would have felt like a minor waste of time. My favorite part of the museum was the room of mosaics. There were many from Pompeii that had been transferred to the museum for preservation. The tiles they used in even the large floor mosaics were the size of a pea.
When we got back to Pompeii Ashley, Katie, and I went to the grocery and bought a bottle of wine each, went to McDonalds for what turned out to be the best burger and fries ever, and then got some gelato before heading back to the hotel. The rest of the night we just sat around with everyone, sipped wine and chatted about what we were planning for the entirely free day Friday after the bus dropped us off in Sorrento....
Cliff Hanger: I’ve decided to dedicate an entire blog to Friday and Saturday because they were the best days ever!; Studio project due this week?; Florence again on Friday;
Again, Pictures will come sometime tomorrow when I have the patience to upload them.
CIAO :)
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