15.2.12 Pompeii and Naples, Italy

The hostel had an excellent breakfast, corn flakes, yogurt, toast, coffee, juice, pretty much all my favorite stuff.

After confirming that the crater of Vesuvius was closed I left to take the train to Pompeii. When I got to the station I saw the train I wanted to take pull away, so I had a half hour to kill. I went into the neighborhood across the street and bought five rolls for 50 cents. I could live very, very cheaply over here. They’re amazingly good for being so cheap.

The train, like everything else here, is covered in graffiti. But once you are on it, it’s just like riding a subway. The trip out gave some great views of Mount Vesuvius and the towns surrounding it, many with orange trees in the backyards. I thought about how excited I was to see Vesuvius while the Italians sitting across from me didn’t even look. Living life as a tourist has some upside.

The train drops you off right at the entrance to Pompeii. A bunch of guides are there trying to get you to take a tour with him and audio guides are for sale too. Generally I think these are scams. I quickly wished I took a tour.

Pompeii is huge. I’ve seen ruins in Rome and Greece and they’re generally small areas that can be seen easily. Pompeii is like a city, except without distinguishable buildings or street signs. So it’s easy to get lost and not know exactly what you are looking at.

But at the same time, it really gives you a feel for what it must have been like to live there. Things like the raised stone crosswalks since the streets were used as sewers too and allowed the people to walk over without stepping in them were visible and could be walked on. You could see wheel tracks in the roads. It was at times like it was just lived in.

I went down to the theater and the amphitheater, stopping in various houses and stores on the way. Pompeii is located in a beautiful part of Italy, with the mountains all around it. The people who lived there must have admired how pretty Vesuvius looked with the snow covering the top of it.

The best part was inside the houses with painted walls intact. I went though a couple of those and made my way down to the arena at the very end of the city.

I took a break for a while to see if I could get in on a guided tour. I waited by the entrance for a while and eventually just went back in and tried to hang by some tour groups. The break was good. Going back through knowing how big the place was it helped me see a bunch of stuff I already missed. The best way to go about pompeii is to just walk and see and not worry about maps or anything.

The Villa del Misteri, with elaborate wall paintings and mosaic floors. They also had a couple casts of people who died in the eruption, which made the whole experience seem more real and slightly chilling.

Among a couple other highlights were the Villa del Founa and a bakery where you could see the oven and the big stones they used to use to grind the wheat with. The forum is huge as well and sometime of the monuments are surprisingly well-preserved.

There’s a whole lot to Pompeii. It would take days to get a real feel for it. But it’s truly an amazing place. It’s always been sort of hard for me to relate to the ancient civilizations with all that’s left are major ruins or temples, things like that. But seeing a regular city with streets and shops similar to how we still live is fascinating.

My major problem with Pompeii is they took some many of the wall paintings and mosaics and put them in museums instead of leaving them at the site and providing context for what it was really like. When you put them in a museum it loses so much value to appreciating them. They just become things as opposed to parts of a whole that you can understand. The same goes with rebuilding things. No one cares about a structure that’s sort of thousands of years old and sort of mostly 30 years old. It’s frustrating how much of our history is fake.

The other interesting thing is how close so many people still live to the volcano, clearly aware of what’s going to happen eventually. I wonder if the next eruption will ruin the ruins. Seems like it would.

After four or five hours of walking around Pomepii I took the train back to the city and walked up to the Duomo. I’m already pretty much done with churches on this trip, but this one looked pretty interesting. And it was awesome inside. Painted murals on the ceilings, chapels with golden murals that are seriously old, it was an impressive church.

I walked around the old town that I saw last night in the dark, stopping to get a cannoli on the way. During the daylight I could figure out my way around a little easier, although they don’t make it easy on you. I headed down to Via Toledo and went up into the Spanish quarter to wander around. It still amazes me. I really enjoy Naples, but it’s a rare place that I like a lot but would not want to live in. While it does seem fun to be a young guy zipping around tiny streets on my scooter with clothes hanging overhead, it sort of seems like everyone here is born and dies here, with no much ever really changing. To an extent that’s awesome, but I don’t think I could be happy living on one of those dirty streets forever. That said, it’s still one of the most incredible places I’ve ever visited.

For dinner I went to Gino Sorbillo and grabbed a table. Luca said this was his favorite pizza place, so had high expectations. I ordered a marghreita pizza and carbonated water. I went down to the use the bathroom and it was a strange unisex bathroom with individual stalls for men and women. I realized I clearly definitely went in the women’s room.

I sat by some Australians who also took pictures of their pizza, which made me feel like less of an awkward tourist. I offered to take their picture with their pizza too.

The pizza is huge. And comes in just a few minutes here. Not sure what takes so long in America. Last night’s was a little crispier, this was more watery, but in a good way. I ate most of it with a fork and knife. I probably liked it even more than Brandi’s. And on top of that, it cost 3.50 Euro. You can’t even get Little Caesars for that much. And this was incredible pizza.

After dinner I walked over to my wifi stealing spot and saw my column ran today, so that’s good. I like this one. I Googled the best gelato in Naples and Scaturchio in Piazza San Deminico kept coming up, so I went there. When I walked in, they were already pacing up the gelato. And the only had about six flavors to begin with. I picked nocciola and crema, with the cream being the better by far. It was only 1.50 Euro but it was also super small scoops.

I was pretty unsatisfied so I went down to the gelato place I passed that said it has been open since the 1800s. I got three some white chocolate, cremina (no idea, but like cream and chocolate), and some sort of thing that had pasta in the name. This was much better. I was content.

It was starting to ran so I headed back, taking a weird route that accidentally put me a street over. I still can’t navigate this place, although I feel comfortable here now.

I got back to the hostel (in the elevator you have to pay 5 cents to use it) and wrote this up and did some reading about going to Positano tomorrow. I was really thinking of renting a scooter but it sounds like the drivers are crazy there too. My plan is to go to Sorrento on the train and take a bus to Positano and come back and spend some time in Sorrento too. No idea how it’ll go. But I’m excited.

My feet are sore.