Pompei!
Trip Start
Jan 03, 2008
1
14
38
Trip End
Apr ????
Sorrento,
Italy
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Sorrento
. As I got off the train, I shit you not, I witnessed an old woman's purse get nabbed and the perpetrator just darting across the train station! She was yelling and screaming, it took about 3 minutes until authorities got to her - it is a shame. When I sat I would wrap the straps of my backpack around my leg.Pompeii is just on the other side of the bay as Naples, about an hour by train, although there is no hostels at Pompeii as it is a completely preserved ruined Roman city. I got a suggestion from my friends during the train perils of Switzerland to stay at a nearby city on the beautiful Almalfe coast of Italy called Sorrento. Waiting for the train there I made conversation with another attractive backpacker waiting for the same train to Sorrento. After proceeding to make conversation, we were both traveling without any plan of lodging once we reached Sorrento, so we decided to begin our travels together. Very rainy when we arrive we find this whole town to be a beautiful tourist city, tiny shops, many restaurants and gorgeous views of the sea and Naples. Together we found our way to a hostel recommended by the tourist information office and we almost missed this place as we arrived. In disbelief, the hostel smelt of chlorine from pools, as we approach the front desk we walk though a bar, a restaurant, and many hotel rooms. There was no way this could be our hostel, we asked if this was the hostel and their reply was, 'why yes, this is the deluxe hostel.' The cheapest room they had available was with two beds and a bathroom and all for hostel prices! Ebony and I gave it a go and booked several nights together in the comfortable 'deluxe hostel'
Pompeii
. The first night we decided get to know each other with a sit down Italian meal at the hostel while we get a load of laundry done up the street (yes my first real load in a month!) As we get ready to head to the Laundromat to do our laundry she slips into this gorgeous dress for dinner, and the only clothes I had that could go without washing is a pair of tattered jeans with tears all over them , an extremely wrinkly shirt and a pair of muddy shoes. However inappropriately I was dressed we lost time over dinner and ended up having to run to the Laundromat to retrieve our clothes well past closing time. We were successful.The next morning Ebony and I headed out to Pompeii. Pompeii was astonishing, this is the best preserved city from the roman period because the nearby volcano, Vesuvius had erupted during its height killing everyone and burying the city in mud and ash, thus preserving the integrity of buildings and casting molds of even the civilians last positions before their death. We first walked into this city looking at some ruins that meant nothing to us and immediately turned around and shared the cost of a digital tour guide so we knew what it was we were looking at. The tour was phenomenal and took about 6 hours to walk about ¾ of the streets of Pompeii! Only the pictures can really describe what it was like to be there. That evening Ebony and I had desert, went to an Italian restaurant for some fine Italian cuisine and headed back for some more gelato (Italian ice cream) for desert
Pompeii
. It would have been nice to sleep there after desert but I was out to find a bar who was playing the Super bowl. Many bars were not offering the game because during the winter at a tourist town and the super bowl in Italian time starting at midnight, no bar was considering extending their operating hours to cater to the ghost town. I did however find the only bar in town who was showing this, I watched the rather disappointing game until 3:30 am while Ebony slept back at the hostel. What was even more disappointing then the turn out of the game was at the final long minute of the game, the bar tender came up to me and said would you like another drink? After buying two and being a minute left in the game, I respectfully declined. The bartender said, if you don't buy a drink then I am closed - I pleaded saying that there is one minute left in the super bowl, I am not spending five more dollars for this. He turned of the television - I didn't find out the final outcome until 3 days later in Greece.The following morning, Ebony and I said our goodbyes as she caught an early train to Florence, and I toured the coast of Almalfe before my train departed to Bari to catch the overnight ferry to Greece.
Comments
Miss the catch?
The Manning scramble/Tyree helmet grab -- please tell me you saw it before that dude turned the set off.