August 23, 1997 - Saturday - Pompei

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Well, are you in for a treat of photographs today!  We woke up early this morning.  06h25 as a matter of fact.  I wanted to make sure that we would make it out of the hotel before the taxi cabbie from the previous day came by.  I was pretty sure he was either going to scam us or rob us and it wasn't in my game plans.  We headed up to the Hotel Belvedere's restaurant this morning and sat down to breakfast.  Their buffet breakfast, whilst not much more than yogurt, croissants with a cream filling, and some bread and condiments was still better than most simply because of the view of Napoli and Mt Vesuvius that we had.  There was also juice which the kids had and cappuccino for me.  Kristie insisted on putting nutella on everything she had.  We finished breakfast well before 08h00.  We headed on back down to the room so that every one could go potty one last time.    We had a long trip ahead of us and the last thing I needed was to have someone have to go potty without one around.

We took off soon thereafter and were out of the hotel by 08h00 easily.  We headed down to the metro station that I had seen the previous day in the piazza not far from the hotel.  We got there and I asked for tickets to the stazione.  The ticket clerk started speaking English and explained that we were on the wrong line.  He even brought us into the ticket booth with him so that he could show us by using his metro map that was on the wall!  Christ, just imagine a NYC subway booth opening their door to invite you in to show you how to get somewhere!  Just doesn't happen!  He explained to us that we needed a different line and that his line would not get us where we needed to go.  We needed to catch the funicolare and then transfer to the metro at the Amedeo station.  Ah, okay.  Makes sense to me (NOT!) but I figured his information had to be good so we headed off to the funicolare.

The funicolare was a few blocks away from us.  We bought tickets and boarded the funicolare.  This is pretty much just a cable car that goes up and down the Vomero hill district.  We were starting at the top of the hill.  We went all the way down to the end as instructed but this was not the Amedeo station as I had been told.  No problem, a couple of questions and the engineer even lead us out of the station and pointedly gave me directions which way to go.  We started walking that way and let me tell you, this was NOT a good part of town, or at least that was the way it seemed to me.  The neighborhood was still Italian but this was obviously a less prosperous section of town.  Needless to say, the metro station we needed was where it was supposed to be and we quickly descended into it's deep depths.

We easily made it to Piazza Garimbaldi which is where the train station is in Napoli.  We headed down to the circumsuviana line which would take us to Pompei.  This is a really inexpensive train ride!  It worked out to less than US$2 for the three of us to get there.  We arrived at Villa dei Mistre which is the dropping off point for the entrance to Pompei.

We entered, and as you can see from the various photographs so far, the imagery and architecture of the destroyed city is simply astounding.  The city had really exquisite architecture and masonry work.  We saw examples of masonry that was really impressive.  I don't think in this day and age you could get someone to put down, tile by tile, the size and complexity of the works we had seen.  What was also striking was the 'death sculptures' that were left behind by the volcano's tufa.  There is simply no way to describe what the impression is when you see what was the last position of someone that died, in such a tragic way.   Especially the person you see in a previous picture that is in a sitting position.  He had his hands over his mouth in order to fruitlessly try and keep out the fumes and dust that were surrounding him.  You can see, he apparently never had a chance.

There were also interesting glimpses into the life of a typical Pomeian.  For instance they had this bakery where they not only baked their bread but also grinded the grains.  In other sections of the city we saw the surgeon's office, public baths, apartment houses.  This is a large city.  We walked and walked and walked!  For over two hours we walked through Pompei.  It wasn't so bad early on as we the weather was fairly comfortable.  But as it started to get closer to noon, the heat started rolling in.  And because the sun is right above you, there is almost no shade.  We were ready for a change.  But what to do, and where to go?

Well, the kids had a pretty good idea.  Let's hit a beach!  Alright, sounds good to me.  But where to go?  I had researched this someone earlier but didn't really have a good idea where to go.  I knew that Sorrento was popular but not quite sure.  And I knew Positano had beaches.  But, to get to Positano, we needed to go to Sorrento anyhow so, we did.  But first, we stopped from some Limone Granite.

The train from Pompei to Sorrento is equally inexpensive.  And even further to get to.  We were probably on the train for over 40 minutes before we arrived in Sorrento.  We got into Sorrento and started walking down to, what looked like, would be beach area.  Ha!  Nope, not this time.  Sorrento is apparently all cliffs way up over the water.  You can look down on it, but it isn't going to give you beach space.  At least one thing was accomplished here, I managed to get a bottle of Limone Cello.  It's a great drink and if you ever get a chance to get it, do so.  I had promised Glenn a bottle and this one is a good one straight from the source!

Having figured out there is no beach here, we headed back to the train station and got tickets to Positano on a bus.  The bus came about 20 minutes later.  That gave us time to have lunch of watermelon that we bought from a man at the fruit cart across the street.  Was that ever really good watermelon!  We boarded the bus for Positano, and headed out to the beach!

The bus ride was only about 30 minutes to Positano, and while I have no pictures of the city itself, it is very picturesque!    The entire city is built into the cliffside coming down all the way to the water.  The beach here, fairly large.  Although it is a gravel beach.  I'm not a big fan of having to walk on rocks, but there wasn't much choice.  We had to buy some paraphernalia for the beach, as we had none!  This took us through all the shops on the long walk down to the beach.  We stopped in multiple shops before Kristie found a bathing suit she liked.  We also needed floaties, beach towels and snorkelling goggles for Stephen.  Armed with our beach goodies, we headed to the beach.  There are two areas, one free, one that is 14,000 lire or about US$9 per person.  We opted for the pay side as I figured it'd be safer.  I did have a whole bunch of stuff with us in our backpack that while not really valuable, was irreplaceable (the camera with all the photos from Pompei).

The beach was rocky.  But the sea was really comfortable.  A refreshing end to a long day of walking around Pompei.  We hung out on the beach for the longest time playing.  I then noticed a number of boats coming into and out of a pier at the far end of the beach.  Wouldn't it be great if there was a boat direct to Napoli?  I thought so but didn't know if my luck would hold out.  

Sure enough it did.  After a couple of hours of soaking in the Mediterrean we were ready to head home.  We packed up our goodies and headed on off to the far end of the beach.  Sure enough, there were launches to Napoli, at a reasonable 48,000 lire (US$30) for the three of us.  And as luck would have it, the next boat was in 10 minutes.  We bought some panini for the ride and hopped onto the boat.  There was a stopover in Capri to pick up more passengers but the next stop was Napoli.  In a little over an hour, we were back on dry land, in Napoli.  It would've taken at least 3 hours to have gone home by the bus/train route, and cost only slightly less.  

We headed off for the hotel in a taxi.  And now I know the guy yesterday ripped us off.  We made it all the way back to the hotel for 25,000 lire.  And we passed the train station at 7,000 lire, plus we had to pay the toll for the autostrada.  Plus the driver took the autostrada and got us there in half the time.  So, be wary of taxi drivers running without their meter running.  Their ripping you off, or trying to.

We came back to the hotel.  Went to the restaurant for dinner and now everyone is asleep.  And so soon shall I.

Copyright @ 1997, Alexandre POLOZOFF.  All Rights Reserved.