This Was Pompeii

This Was Pompeii

Okay, well, when you go to sleep at 4 pm, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise when you wake up at 2 am ready to go. But after a long morning waiting for the sun to come up, and despite anxiety over our cats (who had successfully hidden from my pet-sitter, but have since re-emerged) we managed to make it through our first real day in Italy.

The highlights. Hotel brought the included breakfast to our room – reminded me of the hotel we stayed in in France when I was a teenager where they brought me hot cocoa and croissants every morning. Abundant breakfast was a good way to start the day. But shortly after, we got an email from the pet-sitter that only Izzy had greeted him that day and he couldn’t find the others. Naturally we spent all day telling ourselves that there was little chance that all the cats EXCEPT the one most prone to walking out the door, escaped. But we didn’t calm down about this until tonight, when he visited again and found all four roaming around. But, that aside…

We headed straight for the ruins of Pompeii first thing on the Circumvesuvius train, which is much better when you actually have a seat. We had heard it was scary and sketchy but really had no problems on it (Cindy found the Metro in Naples much spookier), and it actually seemed to run on time, unlike much of Italy, from what I can see. Pompeii was pretty much everything I imagined it to be. Mount Vesuvius looming overhead, the amazing remains of a town well-preserved from 2000 years ago, with people who lived pretty much like we do. They hung out at bars, ate fast food, went to the theater, bathed at the spa, and frequented the brothel. What? I said “pretty much” like we do…

Anyway we spent a good 2 or 3 hours hiking through uneven cobblestone in the misty, gray weather, though didn’t actually rain, which was a relief, exploring the ancient world and petting the MANY docile stray dogs there before heading into Naples to see the artifacts which had been transported to the Archaeological Museum… We successfully navigated the train system there, but first we had to stop for the food that Naples is famous for… pizza! Though Cindy forgot to mention she doesn’t like feta cheese… so much for her pizza quarto fromagi. I, of course, had spaghetti. Anyway, we headed from there to the museum, which while full of some really neat stuff, is absolutely the worst designed museum I’ve ever been in. Like the rest of Naples, it’s dirty, run-down, and in much disrepair. There are so few employees patrolling the place it’s a wonder it hasn’t been covered in graffiti like the rest of the city, the buses, the platforms, everywhere. It apparently was once a University building before they turned it into a museum, and it pretty much looks like they stuck a bunch of art in some classrooms. The walls are painted stark white, making the sculptures kind of just blend in. There’s very little organization and information. The lighting was terrible. Asa, have you been to this place?? It mystifies me why these Italians, who can create such beautiful things, appear to have no pride in their presentation here. Though the artistic tradition seems to have been passed down to budding graffiti artists… What would Da Vinci think?

Anyway the highlight was, of course the “Secret Room,” full of shockingly graphic ancient porn. Though, the guides assure us, the phallus was, apparently an ancient good luck amulet… which I’m sure explains its presence everywhere.

Anyway after exploring the museum and the amazing number of stairs it took to get to it, we were wiped. I struggled to stay awake on the 70 minute, 34-stop ride back down to Sorrento, staring out the window at the suburbs of Naples, which sorta look like Queens, with a lot of laundry hanging on lines outside despite the fact that it’s been rainy the past three days. Anyway, back in Sorrento, we hit the hotel room, room-serviced some ice cream, learned the cats were fine and apparently just finding ways to make us feel good and guilty for leaving them, and now, I think we might just pass out pretty soon… will post this and add a couple pics.