...AND IT WAS INCREDIBLE
I wasn't sure what to expect when I told my host family I was going to Pompeii for the weekend. They were excited for me and told me that it was beautiful there but they didn't say much else. Nonetheless I was excited and hopped on the bus Friday morning, ready for whatever adventure was in store.
Monique and I decided to head to Florence a little bit early and wander around before our train. I decided that I needed a cannoli, and the early hour of 10:30 was not about to be a deterrent. I got a cannoli and un caffe and then we met up with Meredith. Since we still had some time, she brought us to a bar that has iced coffee. Yes, I had just had a coffee, but it was iced coffee, and I love iced coffee, and I miss iced coffee all the time. It's really not a thing in Italy, but this place stole my heart. It was pretty magical. Maybe I'm being a little overly dramatic, but it was delicious iced coffee.
Fully caffeinated, we headed to the train station. Even though Meredith and I had booked our tickets separately, somehow we were assigned seats right next to each other for both legs of the journey. It was a pretty perfect coincidence.
There we are! I hadn't seen this girl since high school but Pompeii seemed like a fitting reunion.
We made it to Napoli (Naples) without any problems and found the local train to Pompeii. We were feeling pretty pleased with out ability to navigate. However, we got about two stops in and the train just stopped. It stayed at the station for an oddly long amount of time and then just turned off. Everyone was looking around trying to figure out what was going on. After a few minutes, the doors opened and we had to get off. Fortunately, another train came in a couple of minutes and we were back on our way.
Also, I would just like to talk about how important Mt. Vesuvius was to our trip. When we were pulling into Napoli, there was a gigantic mountain. We discussed whether or not we thought it was Mt. Vesuvius. We went back and forth on our decision, but ultimately figured out that it was, indeed, Mt. Vesuvius. We could see it from everywhere we went this weekend, and it was super cool.
This was one of our first views of the mountain. You may want to take note of it's size. If you're having trouble, think of adjectives like "huge," "grand," "gorgeous," "magnificent," etc. And just a little foreshadowing, you can see really far from the top of the mountain.
Anyway, the train dropped us off literally right next to the ruins of Pompeii. Needless to say, we were feeling pretty lucky to be staying in a hostel less than a 10 minute walk from such an incredible piece of history.
We cheated a little bit, and used my phone to pull up a map so that we could find our way to the hostel. We walked a few minutes and found ourselves at some sort of hotel with half a sign that said "Easy Bed Hostel." Even though it was only half a sign, we figured it was a good guess, so we pressed the button. An adorable (approximately) 75 year old man came out and started speaking to us in a mixture of French and Italian. We weren't quite sure at first if it was a different dialect of Italian since the language is different in Southern Italy, but then he asked us if we spoke French, which made a lot more sense. Of course, we don't but I guess we were able to communicate alright...
He brought us down to another building (yes, we were confused), and showed us a room, handed us some keys and started to leave. He didn't even ask for our names, but I guess we're honest looking girls?
These were the keys. Figuring out all the different doors has actually been one of the biggest challenges. The giant key was the one to the room, and the door didn't have a handle so we used to to pull the door shut and then spent probably 2 solid minutes locking the door. We were successful though, so I guess that means we're pretty great....I don't know...
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So this was the part of the weekend where we ended up walking through the ghetto of Pompeii, seeing half a crab, a dead pigeon, a bloody napkin....and after all of that...deciding we should find another place to walk around.
Luckily, we found our way to a nice restaurant without so much trouble. Turns out, you have to go the other direction from the train station...but we didn't know.
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But then we ate really good food. For the appetizer, we had fritto misto. This literally means a mixed of fried things...
...and it was awesome.
And then dinner was pizza.
For a more detailed explanation of all those fried things, ask, but I don't think I can bring myself to go into detail about them right now...but I'll get to that...
Dinner was a 3 hour affair, and then we decided to end the night because we were about to have a very long day ahead of us on Saturday. By the way, it was a good decision. Saturday was nuts.
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Saturday morning, we got up super early (7am...gross) and started our morning with breakfast at the hostel. They literally served us pastries and pizza for breakfast. I'm not kidding.
That was breakfast. It was delicious. I know....I spend a lot of time on the food...but it was really good....like really good...
After stuffing our faces with pastries and delicious cappuccinos, we went and bought tickets to go up Mt. Vesuvius. We were going to the top. We decided to take this small cab/bus company though, which in hindsight was a slightly questionable decision. It was the three of us and this other guy named David that we met during this part of the adventure. David is actually Israeli, so naturally I got super excited.
So, the 4 of us got in a van with an elderly gentleman named Angelo who drove us to the top. It was the first of the two scariest rides of my entire life. The roads were super windy and Angelo wasn't nearly as careful as I wish he would have been. He zoomed around corners, beeping to alert other cars that were potentially coming the other way.
But when we got to the top, it was the best thing ever. We walked up the last bit and took in the view of Napoli and the Mediterranean Sea. Stunning.
Oh, also, there's a giant crater at the top of Mt. Vesuvius.
We did have to get back in the car with Angelo to get back down, for part two of the most terrifying car ride of my life, but we did make it back alive. I'll spare you the details of how terrifying it was but you can take my word for it.
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After seeing Mt. Vesuvius, it was time to see what was destroyed by it's eruption in 79AD. We bought tickets and went inside the ruins.
I took TONS of pictures, and I'll only show a few, just for the sake of remaining (relatively) brief, but it was a truly incredible experience.
I really didn't know what to expect going in, but it was amazingly emotional to see the ruins. The dog is a famous image from Pompeii, but seeing it in person was pretty scary.
There were people too. You could see the fear.
This used to be the forum.
Selfie with the audioguide.
We only spent two hours inside of the ruins, but it was emotionally draining. There are suggested routes for a full day inside the ruins but I thought that the two hours snippet was the perfect amount of time.
Also, it was perfect timing because it started raining. We grabbed some lunch and by the time we were finished eating, it had stopped raining. Talk about the ideal situation.
We had to go back to the hostel quickly because the owners informed us in the morning that we had been put in the wrong room, so we went back to get the keys for the new room. It was equally as adorable as the first one.
Then, we hopped on a train to Sorrento.
I LOVED Sorrento. It was adorable, and seeing the Sea was incredible.
We walked around, checked out some shops, sat at an outdoor caffe, but mostly, sat by the water, and looked at the water, and watched the sunset behind the water. It was perfect.
Mount Vesuvius casually in the background.
The sunset!!
After Sorrento, we headed back to Pompeii for dinner. The restaurant we ate at the first night was having a celebration that night with live music, so we figured we'd check it out. For a fixed price, we got a drink, appetizers and pizza (yes, again). We thought that we would pick from the four appetizers, but as it turns out, we got all four. It was so much food! But so delicious.
...and then we had pizza.
We didn't get back to the hostel until 12, and we were exhausted because we had been on our feet for about 15 hours that day. Crawling into a warm bed felt fantastic.
This morning, we got up, had pastries and pizza for breakfast again and then headed to Napoli to catch the train. We had a little bit of time, so we walked around for a few minutes, but I wasn't so enamored by the part of the city we were in. We grabbed a light lunch and then got on the train and fell asleep.
Monique and I decided we wanted another iced coffee in Florence before heading back to Siena. It was quite a treat. I had forgotten how much I missed iced coffee.
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I'm gonna end my story now because I'm falling asleep, but I just want to say that my host family made pizza tonight for dinner.
The themes for the weekend:
1. Mount Vesuvius.
2. Pizza.
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