| June 7th, 2008 | Italy, Travel

The sky was looking pretty overcast when I awoke this morning. I was hoping that by the time I got back from breakfast that it would clear up so that I could start my day. I had been planning on doing a day trip to Pompei and that’s exactly what I did.

After breakfast I headed back up to my room because it was still raining a bit. Twenty minutes later, my aunt and uncle knocked on the door and were heading down to the pool bar which serves food from 12-2PM. Odd hours, I know. Most pool bars tend to be open all day, not in Italy. They take random breaks during the day like the people of Spain!

I headed down to the pool to grab something to eat and to chat about what our plans for the day were. My aunt and uncle wanted to head to Capri, and I had already given Capri a shot the previous day and it sucked due to the torrential down pours. I wanted to head to Pompei for the day but I was waiting for the skies to clear up first before I even attempted to make the trip.

At around noon time I decided that I would head down to the train station which was a 15 minute walk from my hotel (S. Agnello Station) to head for Pompei. The Circumvesuviana train runs from Sorrento, to Naples with many stops in between, one being Pompei. I found it to be fairly fast, efficient, and very cheap (3.10 Euro – Day Pass). The only downfall to the Circumvesuviana train system is that they are not the cleanest trains. The outside of each train car is full of graffiti and the inside of the cars are no where near modern. I guess you get what you pay for here in Italy! It’s cheap, and it got me to Pompei, so that’s all I expected of it!

Pompei was only about a 25 minute train ride from Sorrento, and it was a lot faster than I thought it would be. Trains run every 25-30 minutes too, so they are pretty frequent unlike other modes of transportation here in Sorrento. Pompei was about nine stops from (S. Agnello Station) heading towards Napoli (Naples) of course.

When I arrived in Pompei, it instantly reminded me of Pisa, Italy due to all of the street vendors. It wasn’t as bad as Pisa was with the “looky, looky” guys coming up to you trying to sell you the shirt off of their back, but there were tents, juice shops, and souvenir shops that lined the walk to the ruins of Pompei. They are smart enough to set up shop where they know all of the tourists come. I would hate to label myself a tourist, but when you visit some of these sights you instantly become one.

The ruins of Pompei are within a 5 minute walk from the train station. I headed straight for the information booth located inside of the entrance of the ruins where I picked up a free map and free guide book so that I could easily navigate the ruins of Pompei. I then bought a ticket to enter the ruins which cost 11 Euro. I thought that it was fairly expensive considering if you wanted to rent a guide it would cost another 7 Euro. I decided to walk the ruins on my own and use my map, and guide book to get around.

Once inside I was amazed by the fact that this village was once covered in volcanic ash and rock after Mt. Vesuvius erupted back in August of 79AD. The whole village was then excavated and now the public can tour the ruins of this amazing ancient city. I was also amazed by how big the city actually was. There were 3 different routes you could take to tour the ancient city of Pompei, the first route took approximately 2 hours, the second 4 hours, and the third 6 hours! 6 Hours would obviously allow you to see all of Pompei.

After about 20 minutes of strolling around I ran into two girls taking photos of each other in front of some of the ancient buildings. Jodie was from New Jersey, and Brittany was from New York. Both fairly local to me in Massachusetts. Jodie and Brittany are currently working as Au Pair’s in Rome and were visiting Pompei for the day like myself. I ended up hanging out with them for the rest of the day as we walked in circles trying to find certain things that each of us really wanted to see. It was a great time, and it was really cool to meet people that were my age.

We walked around and visited a few sites: Porta Marina, Temple of Venus, Temple of Apollo, Forum, Forum Granary, House of the Faun, House of Pansa, Bakery, The Lupanare and much more! We covered a lot of ground once we figured out how to use the map. I’m usually great with maps, but this place is so big that it’s confusing! Especially that it lacks street names. It took the three of us to figure it out, but in the end we accomplished a lot so it worked out great.

After exiting the grounds of ancient Pompei, we headed for the train station. The girls invited me to come hang out in Naples with them for the night, but I had dinner plans with my aunt and uncle back in Sorrento, plus my hotel room was waiting for me there so I decided to head home. I exchanged emails and numbers before splitting up with the girls so that we can keep in touch incase I want to head back to Rome for a few days or maybe they’ll come visit Dublin or Boston sometime.

Afterwards I jumped on the train back to Sorrento and arrived back at my hotel around 6:30 just in time to shower, get dressed and head out to dinner with my aunt, uncle, Keene, and Allison (my aunts friends from work).

We went out to a restaurant in the main square of Sorrento (Piazza Tasso) and had dinner and drinks before heading across to the Fauno Bar for another drink before heading home for the night.

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Side note about restaurants in Italy:

There’s something about the service in Italy that makes me want to go crazy. It’s not just Sorrento either. At this point I’ve been to nearly 10 cities in Italy and the restaurant service is the same across the board. The waiters are rude, your starters/appetizers come out with your main course, and your drinks come as you’re taking your last bite of your meal. If you want the bill/check, make sure you ask for it about 25 minutes before you want to leave. They are so slow, and I think it’s on purpose. Simply because they think that the longer they take to print out the bill, the more likely you are to order another drink or dessert. It’s unbelievable. I have to say that Italy is the worst by far when it comes to restaurant service. Hands down…
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