Day 13: Pompeii & Naples

Today was our day trip to Pompeii! We took the 6:26am train. We barely made the train (sensing a pattern here), because we forgot our snacks at the B&B so I ran (literally) back, grabbed the snacks and then we ran--we're talking a full on sprint-- to our train. We made it though and that's all that matters! After the hour train ride, we switched to a chater bus... Let me pause here and say that driving is organized chaos in Italy. Whoever has more guts, or the bigger car, wins. Our bus was going down narrow streets and weavin in and out of parked cars with ease. Then there was the fact that we were driving on cobble stone streets. It was an experience.

After another little train ride, we finally arrived to Naples (or Napoli as they call it in Italian)! We got a little turned around when we were trying to find the entrance to the Pompeii site and an older gentleman wearing a hat, walking with a cane and carrying a National Geographic magazine, hollered at us and walked with us to the correct street. It was the cutest thing! We bought our tickets and headed into the site. 

The preservation of the site is amazing! From poetry to tables to artwork on the walls of homes, the volcanic ash preserved the site so well. Between the guide we received with our ticket, Kristi's knowledge and Rick Steve's walking tour, we got a really good feel for what we were seeing and what like was like back in 79 A.D.

They had "fast food" bars, where people would walk up on the street and buy food which was kept hot/cold in inlaid bowls in the counter. We were able to see the holes in the sidewalk outside the bars where the owners would place poles to stretch material over the sidewalk to create shade for their customers. They also had an amazing canal system. They raised their sidewalks to cover lead pipes carting water throughout the town to homes, bathes and drinking fountains. The water that ran down the streets was more like sewage, so they put hop scotch stones in the street so people could cross, but they left just enough room for carts to pass through. They also inlaid white, shimmery stones in their sidewalks that caught the moonlight and lit up the streets so that they could see at night. 

While the casts with the most details aren't pictured here, the bodies were actually really interesting. I was surprised to see that two of the five bodies we saw were actually pretty big, showing hight. It was fascinating to see how the people shuttered, curled into a ball or shielded their faces as the ash came raining down on them.

I could go on and on about Pompeii, but seeing as I'm typing these blog posts out on my phone, I'm going to leave it to the photos to show the rest. For dinner we stopped in Naples, the birthplace of pizza, and got a take away pizza at the so called original pizza place. They only have two kinds: margarita and marinara. This was the pizza place where Julie Roberts the in the movie Eat, Pray, Love. It was so delicious! We are at the train station and unintentionally did every possible insulting thing... We were wearing shorts and workout clothes; we ate pizza with our hands; we were laughing kind of loudly. Sorry, Naples. We were just really hungry.