Pompei, Sorrento and Capri

  Capri, Campania, Italy
Saturday, September 20, 2008

Last weekend I went on my second excursion with my program.  The excursion went to Pompei, stayed the night in Sorrento and then went to the Island of Capri.  On saturday morning Sara and I met the bus at 5:30 in the morning.  Our tour guides name was Lucca and he is one of the advisors at Lorenzo De Medici.  He was a very sweet Italian man who did a really good job keeping track of fifty students! It took about 5-6 hours to get all the way down to Pompei.  We had some pretty good pizza just outside the site and then went in for our tour.  Pompei is an amazing place to visit.  It is the largest archeological site in the whole world.  Even though I had been there before with my family it was amazing to see again and I learned some new things.  I learned that it is actually only 2/3 of the way explored.

A City that is 2000 Plus Years Old

We had a tour guide who took us around the ancient city of pompei for three hours.  It is incredible to see a city that is over two thousand years old so well preserved.

Frescos

My favorite part was seeing the frescos that still remained and the colorful paint on the walls.

The Coliseum

We saw the first known colleseum, the theatre, the bath house, the forum and many houses and shops.  We also saw the things they had saved including people (so sad), and lots of vases.

After the tour we took about an hour bus ride to the coastal town of Sorrento.  Sorrento is where we stayed so we checked into our hotel and then walked around before dinner.  Sara and I roomed with two other girls on the trip who we ended up hanging out with the rest of the weekend, they were so nice! Sorrento is a cute little town that specializes in limoncello and has lots of little shops to look through.  We got to have dinner at our four star hotel and ate so much food! We ate a true italian meal.  I had risotto with shrip, pasta with sausage, chicken, and potatoes and cakes! Afterwards Lucca took us to a limoncello shop where we got to try different types.  We tried regular, cream and chocolate.  The cream was my favorite.  We tried little lemon candies too and I loved all of them! Afterwards we walked off our HUGE meal and went to bed.

Boat to Capri

Sunday morning we had breakfast at the hotel and then took a boat to the Island of Capri.  The coast of Italy is gorgeous and we got to see the view as we traveled to Capri.  The boat ride was only about 30 minutes.  When we got to Capri we found out that we were not going to see the blue caves.  It was a beautiful day but I guess the water was too choppy at the other side of the Island.  I was really dissapointed because that was why I chose the trip and traveld for 6 hours to get there! But we got to take a boat around one half of the Island it was gorgeous. By the end of the day I was not dissapointed at all becaues Capri is a beautiful and unique place even without the caves.  The water was actually really wavy and we soon realized why we couldn't go to the caves.  We got a little wet but our driver did a pretty good job! The boat ride was amazing.  The color of the water is the bluest of blues and it makes eveyrthing that much more amazing.  Capri is known for these three rocks that are just off of the Island.  They are beautiful and I was so impressed because our driver drove us through the little hole in the middle rock! We saw a huge yacht and some of the rich houses on the side of the Island. 

Blue Water!

Then the driver drove us up close to some caves and it was beautiful.  

White Cave

We saw a white cave that looked gorgeous next to the blue water.  After the boat ride we took a bus up to the town of capri.  We then had lunch and took a bus to the other side of the Island.  From there we took a chair lift to the highest point of the Island.  The chair lift was so cute. We each had our own chair and it felt weird to ride one without skiis.  You kind of had to run a little when you got off :-) At the top we had an amazing 360 view of the whole Island and took lots of pictures. 

Lucky Girls!

Like many things this past month, Capri is one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been. 

Famous Shot of Capri

We met our group at 5 o'clock and I fell asleep on the boat ride back because I was so exhausted. We then took the 6 hours bus ride back home.  It was long but I slept for some of it.  I had a great experience but it was definitely nice to be back in Florence when we arrived :-)