Pompeii, Italy : Sept.27 - 29

Pompeii: Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2005

Early start today as we were doing the ruins. We were down around 7:30 for the buffet breakfast when Brennan and Sierra came clean about their “little problem”. The evening before the kids had wandered down to the lobby to check stuff out. In the entrance there was a little bottle of what looked like lemon stuff chilling on ice. (It had the same name as the dessert they were given in a restaurant in Greece.) They deciphered the sign as saying “complimentary”, so they checked with the clerk to see if they could have some. The first warning should have been / was when the clerk asked Brennan his age. When Brennan answered 14, the clerk replied “sure I guess you’re old enough”. At this point warning bells should have been going off and I suspect they were but …. The green light had been given and the shot glass was filled. Still trying to convince himself it was lemon dessert he was shooting (Sierra by this time had backed off) he powered it back. Gagged, choked, chortled…. Turns out it was not lemonade, surprise surprise but rather the famous lemon liqueur of the region called limoncello. Something like 40 or 60 proof. Welcome to Pompeii Brennan!

After having a good laugh and a bit of a discussion it was off to the ruins. Pretty cheap at 8 euro for the adults and 4 euro for the kids. We entered from the south side near the stadium. It was a very long day and we saw a lot. As everybody knows Pompeii was buried in ash in 79 AD when Mt. Vesuvius erupted big time. Whereas Herculeum some 15 km up the coast was quickly buried in mud, Pompeii being a bit further along was buried in ash, preserving the town pretty much as it stood.

Today some 40% of the town has been excavated and of that only10% is open to tourists. The rest will likely never be dug up as the costs are too prohibitive. As you wander through the excavated and deserted town streets it’s a little spooky. The buildings still have the frescoes on the walls and elaborate tile work just below your feet. The crosswalks of the time were large rocks placed in the streets so people wouldn’t have to step in the waste material being washed down the roads.

The must sees were the necropolis (cemetery), the gymnasium, the large amphitheater and some rich homes. When we hit the amphitheater we were the only ones there. It seats around 8,000 and was pretty e erie. In its time it held pageants and gladiatorial fights. We tried to do some video clips but after several failures to get them right all we had was a bunch of giggling children and one Mom who couldn’t restrain themselves.

Brennan did manage to regroup around 15 minutes later as we were touring the streets and ended up doing an impromptu song and dance to the tune of “singin’ in the rain” about the gladiator fights. Brian managed to catch most of it on video just as the other tourists walked around the corner. Not sure who was more embarrassed them or our own Gene Kelly.

The other highlights were the Forum, The temple of Apollo as well as the large and small theaters, the House of the Vettii and the House of the Mysteries. It was all overwhelming. I think the strangest things were the casts made from the bodies that had been buried in the ash. Several were on display however the most disturbing was along the main forum. Here in steel cages and under shelter were rows and rows of materials that had yet to be catalogued or put on display. Basically a large storage area and as you look inside you see even more casts of people and animals just lying there collecting dust.

We were in the site for almost 6 hours and had gone without lunch and with only a small bottle of water. On this site we had opted to save some money and did the tour on our own with a small book and a map. We managed quite well but I think the next time we would likely avail ourselves of a local guide. They run around $35 Euro for the 3 hour tour but you get a lot of information that you would otherwise have missed out on. It helped us that we had seen so many ruins already and some with a guide, that a lot of stuff was familiar.

Lunch though late, was at a great pizza place where we again found the 1 Euro / quarter bottle wine. We ended up back at the hotel around 4 for some homework, rest and a bit of internet. Dinner was another fabulous feed of pasta. This time it was a spicy rigatoni around the corner from the hotel and off to bed.

Sorrento : Thursday September 29, 2005

We had one more day to spend in the region and had to decide between climbing Mt. Vesuvius and visiting the ruins of Herculeum or going on out to the coast. On advice from family and friends we took a look at Vesuvius that morning and saw it was in heavy clouds. Having heard they often close the trail to the rim of the volcano in cloudy conditions we opted for the coast.

The trip out took a bit longer than we had originally planned. It took 30 minutes to get back to the train station connecting Pompeii with Sorrento, and we had to wait an additional 15 min for the train. After a 40 minute train ride filled with loud school kids (teenagers around the world all seem to be the same) we ended up in Sorrento. As well we couldn’t watch the beautiful landscape because the windows were painted over by overzealous graffiti artists. All the trains and the walls near the train lines were all covered with bold and large amounts of graffiti.

Sorrento is a beautiful town perched high up on the cliffs overlooking the sea. Our first destination was the port at the bottom of the cliffs. We had hoped to catch a ferry across to the island of Capri.

Well after a very steep hike down to the port, we found the ferry terminal and the ticket offices for the boats. It was a little after 10 and most of the boats were filled up. The remaining ones wanted 95 Euro return for the family of 4. Our situation wasn’t helped when Brian laughed in the ticket attendant’s face and walked away. Capri was no longer on the agenda it seemed!

Not put off, we decided to make the best of a poor situation. We had been on the road for 50 days now and this was really the first blown day or event. Instead of Capri, we ended up having a wonderful time touring the town of Sorrento and visiting the Amalfi coast. We tried the lemon liqueurs (Debbie and Brian did. Brennan was cut off) and had a wonderful lunch. By mid to late afternoon we ended up catching the train back to Pompeii and our hotel. Touring Sorrento instead of Capri wasn’t too much of a heart breaker after all.

The train was again filled with high-school students. Where do all these kids come from? And I will be hard pressed to complain ever again about Sierra’s almost nonstop chatting at times. These kids talked a mile a minute, loudly, and all at the same time. And they did it for 45 minutes straight! By the time we got back I was looking forward to the dinner and wine and bed. Not particularly in that order. Tomorrow it is on to Roma!( NEXT PAGE )