Italy: Day VI (Sorrento, Pompeii)

Sunday, July 24th:

The Temple of Apollo at Pompeii, in the Shadow of Mt. Vesuvius:

            Today was yet another awesome day on the trip. Unfortunately, the wind and seas were too high so we were not able to go to Capri this morning. Instead, we are signed up for the same trip tomorrow. We ate breakfast at the hostel before I decided that I was going to take the Circumvesuviana train up to Pompeii. Max wanted to stay at the hostel to read and rest as he had already been to Pompeii, so I made the trip alone. I got out at the Pompeii train stop, ate a Panini and some fresh orange juice, and went inside the enormous excavation.

The Isis Temple at Pompeii:

Ruins and Mt. Vesuvius:

            I was told that I should take a guide, or at least an audioguide, but I decided to go it alone anyways. The site is very, very large and can be confusing, as all of the streets are tiny and winding, so it is easy to get lost. I spent hours wandering around the old temples and forums of the city. It is absolutely amazing how life just completely stopped in the year 79 AD from the Vesuvius eruption. The city was completely preserved, and visitors can even see a few people and animals who were preserved by the ash upon their untimely deaths.

A Petrified Body of a Pompeii Citizen (AD79):

            One of my favorite parts of the day was checking out the ancient Roman brothel in Pompeii. It was very unusual and humorous because each room had fresco paintings of the services that the women could provide, as not all customers could speak the same language! I must have spent over four hours wandering around the ancient streets before heading back to meet up with Max back at the hotel.

Brothel Advertisement Frescoes in Pompeii:

            We had some time to kill before dinner, so we decided to borrow a soccer ball and play around with some local kids at a turf soccer field right by our hotel. We had a great time booting it around and getting shown up by kids half our age before working up a big enough appetite to get some dinner. We walked across down to the cliffs overlooking Sorrento’s marina and ate at a place called La Ripetta. We ate some veggies soaked in olive oil, Green Sea Pasta with Clams, and I had a coastal fish. It was pretty funny eating the fish because, as is the typical style in the area, the fish came out un-cleaned. I am used to this and can clean a fish, but they sent out a special waiter to clean the fish for me who was an elderly man who put on his glasses before cleaning the fish in ten seconds flat! Needless to say, I was impressed by him and the fish. We walked around Sorrento a bit before having some drinks at our hostel and resting up for Capri and Positano tomorrow!

The Pompeii Forum: