Yesterday was one of those rare days where we took no photos at all. It was mostly a travel day. We went directly to the bus terminal after leaving the hotel and made the trip back to Florence. In Florence, we had an hour to kill before our train, but with our bags limiting us we just waited it out in the station, grabbing a couple sandwiches for lunch. The train was nice and fast as are all the Euro Star trains in Italy (it would seem). We were tempted to simply get off when we pulled into Rome but for better or worse (read on) we decided to continue on to Naples.
We arrived at around 2:30 in the afternoon and went straight for the hotel. Our hotel is just off a pretty main thoroughfare so it was easy to find but also seemed a little noisy. We Skyped for a bit and did some planning on how to spend our afternoon in the city. We didn't want to be out too late because every review we have heard of Naples told us it was a city full of pickpockets and scam artists, and can even get dangerous at night.
After consulting with the concierge we learned that Naples' most famous pizzeria was just across the street. It was in fact the same pizzeria Julia Roberts visits in 'Eat, Pray, Love'. We headed out to do a bit of walking around before dinner. We found ourselves on a busy pedestrian street and even passed a marching band. The city felt similar to a large and populated South American city (at least what we imagine them to be since we have never travelled to any); lots of people, lots of noise, and lots of trash. After strolling around until dark, the impression we had of Naples was not positive. It felt like a big, dirty city. While we didn't witness any crime, we did notice a lot of beggars and there was garbage all over every street.
We got back to the restaurant early (by Italian standards) and sat down. The pizzeria was small and cramped and was decorated with the obligatory photos of Julia Roberts eating pizza and posing with the staff. The pizza was delicious, baked on a thin crust with a simple tomato sauce, real mozzarella, and a basil leaf. We decided that we would come back the next night, especially since it was so close to the hotel we wouldn't need to be out in the city for long.
Now comes what might be the worst experience we have had this entire trip. After reading for a while before going to sleep Jackie felt something bite her. Beside her head was a smallish bug. I did my best to play it down and went so far as to pull back the sheets to show that it was the only one and not a big deal. But it was not the only one and it was in fact quite a big deal. Without looking too hard we found at least half a dozen red bugs as big as half a centimeter in diameter (about an eighth of an inch for the Americans). Then, with dread, we realized that we had had our clothes bags on the bed earlier and could have very well infected every piece of clothing with bed bugs. It was now close to midnight. We headed downstairs to demand to be booked into another hotel. Knowing the horror stories of how these bugs spread, we did not want to take our chances with another room. We argued this hotly for half an hour with the attendant. There was no vacancy at the sister hotel, or the hypothetical 3-4 others he called while we were upstairs inspecting and shaking out our clothing and packing up. He did talk us down from just walking out and finding a hotel on our own, which at 12:30 on a big (and supposedly dangerous) road like this would have most likely ended even worse for us. We conceded that we had to accept another room at our current hotel. Begrudgingly we tried to fall asleep in a new (thoroughly inspected) room that appeared free of bed bugs.
The next morning we were put on the phone with the hotel manager. He was unwilling to compensate us in any way and gave the impression that we had somehow caused them some inconvenience. Jackie let him know what kind of reviews this hotel has coming on Hotels.com and Trip Advisor. Despite the sour start, we were determined to make the most of the day because we had been talking and looking forward to it since second year of university: we were headed to Pompeii.
We took the commuter rail, the 'Circumvesuviana', for the 30min ride from Naples to Pompeii. After getting our tickets and audio guides we entered the Roman world circa 79AD.
*Our first look into the city
*Me finding the way to the first audio guide prompt, looking a little GQ (at least according to Jack)
A quick history lesson: Pompeii was founded in the 6th-7th century BC and was subjected to Roman rule in 80BC when Rome conquered all of Campania (southern Italy). It thrived as a trading town and seaport and grew to house 20,000 residents. In 62AD the city was hit by a severe earthquake that did major damage and sparked many large fires. The earthquake was a precursor to the city's ultimate fate when on August 24th, 79AD Mount Vesuvius erupted burying the city and it's residents under 6m of ash and debris. The city was first rediscovered in 1599, but due to the sexual content of many Roman-era statues and paintings, it was quickly covered over again as a form of censorship. It was again discovered in 1748 and excavations of the city commenced. (Side note: As some of the reconstruction work from the earthquake was still underway 17 years later when the volcano erupted, archaeologists were given a first hand look into Roman construction techniques).
Today the site is over 160 acres and about 2/3 has been excavated. In the 1990s excavation work halted to allocate all resources available into preserving what had already been uncovered. Only 1/3 of the exposed structures are open to the public.
It is currently believed that the hot gasses (250C) of the pyroclastic cloud was responsible for killing everyone left in the city. When excavating, the lead archeologist was alerted to findings of hollow spaces within the ash. He suggested filling some of them with plaster and, once set, removing the surrounding ash. When the plaster casts were exposed, they turned out to be the impressions of bodies (both human and animal) strewn around the streets. Most of these have been removed and brought to the National Archeological Museum in Naples. However a few are still at the site protected from the elements and can be seen in the pictures below.
Below are some of the additional photos we took around the site.
*A mosaic reading (in Latin) "Beware of Dog", found at the entrance to a house
*Soup kitchen
*Pompeii's theatre
*Another view of the theatre
*Mosaic depicting the fall of Troy
*Pompeii's version of the Coliseum
*Gladiator Daryl
*Gladiator Jackie
*Vineyard (Geologists are conducting studies on site, trying to recreate ancient gardening techniques)
*Venus frescoe
*Ruins at sunset
*More ruins at sunset
*The Forum
*Another angle of the Forum
We stayed on the site for close to 6 hours and didn't even come close to seeing everything. It was truly more than we had even imagined it to be. The engineers in us were blown away.
We took the train back towards Naples, went to the pizzeria again, and now we are kicking back at the hotel (we checked, the bed is still clear). Tomorrow we are catching a train to Rome to spend the last five days of the European leg of our trip. Hard to believe. We will start our time in Rome by laundering all of our clothes in very hot water...should be a blast (hopefully it will blast away the little sons a...).
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