Heather here again. I let Lenny take over the posting for the past few days because he truly knows a lot more about ancient Roman history and is able to give a better description of everything. Today's adventures were a bit more easy for me to grasp after a few crash courses already in Italian history, so let's see how this goes.
This morning after another delicious breakfast brought by our BNB hosts (see the pic on Facebook), we took the train out to Pompei. We bought this Naples Artecard a few days ago that gave us unlimited access to the equivalent of Go Transit (suburban travel around Naples) and unlimited access to all of the sights you could ever want to see (the archeological digs, museums, etc). The train to Pompei was about 40 minutes long and was standing room only but eventually with about 10 minutes to go we both got to sit down :). We were both pleased that the train we got ot in Naples actually went to Pompeii because the smart Italians decided to have four trains leaving from one platform (they're not labeled) in stead of having one train per platform, which you'd think would make more sense.
So Pompei. after having only a so-so time in the 40-degree weather at the Herculaneum yesterday, I convinced Lenny that it'd be good to have a tour guide for the visit to Pompei to keep me focused and less likely to complain (ha!).Anyhoo for only 10 Euro each we ended up with a fantasticguide who took us around for 2 hours. We saw the casts of bodies that we didn't see at the Herculaneum yesterday (and wwere kind of expecting to), as well as some recently discovered bronze chests, carts, and pots. There were also plenty of ruins and columns to see as wwell but no statues (they are all at the museum). There were a LOT of tourists and it was pretty warm, but all in all it was a good visit. There's something like 40 acres to explore and even thought we only did something like 5, it was still an amazing experience. At the end of the tour we were offered a trip to go 30 minutes through the city to view a few more buildings including the arenas however after walking for 2 hours on Roman roads at high sun, I don't think anyone in our group of 14 opted for that. FYI, the most common things you'll see at Pompeii are: old bakeries including the mills they used to grind flour and ovens, homes including some original frescos and tile flooring, a handful of brothels with rather entertaining "menus" painted on the wall, and some ruins of temples.
After a very expensive, over-priced, and yet oh-so-delicious lunch outside the Pompeii ruins, we decided to spend the rest of our day in Sorrento, which at that point was only an additional 20 minute train ride. Sorrento, turns out, is Awesome. It's very similar to Niagara-on-the-Lake or Westport, in that it is really catered to tourists and super clean. This was SUCH a welcome change from stinky stinky dirty dirty Naples (you'd honestly think they were on a garbage strike here and that no one knows or cares if there's graffiti on 3000 year old buildings). Once we got off the train at Sorrento there wwere rows and rows of high end and average price clothing stores. The next street down had lots and lots of touristy shops and we picked up some gifts from there. Sorrento is known for its lemons and I saw some of the biggest I've ever seen in my entire life -- some about the same size as my head! There were a lot of lemon products for sale for this reason: lemon soaps, lemon napkins, and of course lemoncello (an alcohol). We sampled some of the lemoncello and while it's not really my cup of tea, Lenny liked it.We got some beautiful pictures once we made it down to the coast and also stopped for some caffe lattes and gelato.
Tomorrow we're being picked up at our bnb by a driver to take us on the infamous Amalfi coast drive for which I've been forewarned that my knuckles will turn white for about 2 hours... Around 10, however, we get to go on an 8-hour private boat cruise of the coast including stops at the Blue Grotto and other grottos I'm blanking on right now. This was one of our splurges for our trip and after something cumulative like 40 hours looking at ruins over the past three days, I'm really looking forward to it :)
Ciao for now,
Heather
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