Italy 2007 Day 3: Pompei

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Today, I left Rome (after much too short of a visit) and headed down to Sorrento. The day started bright and early with a 6:45 pick-up at my hotel after a difficult night's sleep. My bed was really uncomfortable. There is a reason (OK, several reasons) the Hotel Julia is just 60 euro/night in spite of its outstanding location right in the heart of Rome. Oh well, it served its purpose and will again when I come back on Friday. I'll be spending the next 3 days on the "Southern Italian Splendors" tour from the Appian Line tour company. After the hotel pick-up, they put us on a bus with 35 other people and we headed towards the Bay of Naples.

As I was waiting for the bus, I struck up a conversation with a really nice Aussie couple named Anna and Dino. They are newlyweds traveling around the world for their honeymoon. Unlike about half the people on the bus this morning, they are doing the same 3-day trip as I am (everyone else is just doing a day trip to Pompei from Rome) and the, coincidentally, they are heading up to Florence (just as I am). I have a feeling I'm going to like them.

After a quick stop for breakfast at a "tourist trap" rest area (similar to ones I've seen all over the world), our first major destination of the day was Naples. Underwhelming is the best word I can think of to describe it. Perhaps I would have had a different opinion if we would have gotten off the bus for more than 5 minutes and had a chance to explore. As it was, we basically just spent almost an hour stuck in traffic looking at ugly buildings and lots of billboards. The most interesting part of the visit was the 5 minutes we got off the bus to take pictures of the fort/castle on the coast in the center of town. The sea is really high today and several members of our group were drenched by a couple of big waves. I hope this weather has cleared up by Friday when we are supposed to be taking a trip to Capri and, more importantly, the Blue Grotto iff conditions permit.

Our main stop of the day was Pompei. We got there just in time for lunch but first we had to endure an expensive hand-made jewelry store disguised as an "educational experience" about how the jewelry was made. I am sure the work that goes into making the jewelry is impressive and all, but they spent literally 2-minutes briefly explaining what the artisan was doing before showing us into the store where we could purchase these tiny little pieces for several hundred euro. Needless to say, I did not buy anything.

Lunch (included with the tour) felt a little bit like a cattle call. We were in a cafeteria-style room with hundreds of other tourists and a musician walking around (asking for tips) as he tried to get the crowd to sing Italian favorites such as "Volari". Kind of surreal, but the meal was actually not too bad.

After lunch, we headed into the ruins of Pompei. Pompei was a rather large ancient Roman city that was completely destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. All of the residents of the city were killed in this catastrophe and the city (of ~20,000 people) was buried under ~25 feet of lava and ash from the eruption. After several additional eruptions and a couple of earthquakes, the city was forgotten for 1700 years until they began to excavate it in the mid 1700's. It's truly amazing what they found. In addition to the famous pictures of ash covered bodies frozen in place at the time of the eruption, they also found a city that must have been one of the most advanced cities of the ancient world. A theatre. Marketplaces. Snack bars. Bath houses. Even a brothel complete with very explicit frescoes to make sure you were visiting the correct lady of the evening. All very impressive and they estimate that they have only unearthed around two-thirds of the city so far. All of the local archeologists are currently busy digging up what appears to be the ancient Roman port underneath the main square in Naples (it's in the way of a planned subway stop). I'm sure they'll get back to Pompei some day and who knows what else they will discover. What they have found so far is impressive enough and well worth a visit.

After a little bit of a hassle packing up the seemingly much too small bus that is taking us to our hotel, we got on the road to Sorrento. Stunning coast line. Bright blue water. And amazing views of Mount Vesuvius. I can see why this area is such a popular resort getaway in the summer. We're staying at the Grand Hotel Vesuvio on the coast just outside Sorrento. It has a fantastic view of the Bay of Naples with Mount Vesuvius in the background. The hotel itself is gorgeous -- worth all 4 stars it claims to have. The only downside: I must have the room with the worst view in the entire hotel. Everyone else in the group has a nice ocean view. I can see a driveway and a wall. I guess that's what you get when you book a single room on a trip like this! At least the room is really nice and it's still a better view than I had at the Hotel Julia!