Back in Old Napoli, That's Amore

This past weekend was our overnight fieldtrip to Naples, Pompeii, and Paestum. For those of you not familiar with a map of Italy, this is an area known as the Amalfi Coast in southern Italy just north of the "boot" of Italy. We left Orvieto at 5:30 in the morning for a 4/4 1/2 hour bus ride to Naples. Because of the early departure time, some kids on our bus will still drunk...which made for a very annoying first part of the ride for the rest of us who were trying to sleep.

Naples is a very interesting city and I really had heard nothing but bad things about it before arriving there, but I was excited to visit it since it is right on the sea. Honestly, I thought it was a cool place since the vibe is a lot different than any other city in Italy I have seen so far. It is definitely a lot "dirtier" than Rome and Florence and less put together. My first thought upon entering Naples was, "Why didn't the Jersey Shore decide to come here?" They would fit in much better.

Our activity in Naples was a visit to the National Museum of Archaeology, one of the most important Archaeology museums in the world. We got to see the "Gabinetto Segreto" where all the erotic art excavated from Pompeii is housed. It also contains some famous statues and frescoes. 

I remember seeing this particular work when learning about Pompeii for the first time in 6th grade.

After the museum, we had a break for lunch. One of the girls in our group wrote down the name and location of the pizzeria known as the "Best Pizza in Naples," it was a metro ride away, but a group of us decided to venture to it anyway. Of course since it is the "Best Pizza in Naples," it was also the longest wait in Naples and we didn't have the time to try it so we went to the pizzeria across the street. Even though we had to shovel down half of it before putting the other half in a box and running to make it back to our bus in time, I still concede that it was probably just as good as the "Best Pizza in Naples." 

Next up was a trip to Pompeii. The weather had been muggy all day, and as soon as we got off the bus in Ancient Pompeii it started pouring rain. The good part of this was that the place was totally empty as all the tourist went home...the bad part was that it was pouring rain. I was also exhausted and we spent over three hours at the site, nevertheless it was unreal to see the town I had heard so much about in my World History classes and also my Natural Disasters class earlier this year. It was also incredibly eerie to be there seeing this town that was totally covered by volcanic ash. The cloudy weather added to the eeriness because it looked like Mt. Vesuvius was erupting, and I have to admit I was sure that if Vesuvius was going to erupt any time soon it would be when I was there. 

It was also cool/creepy to see the preserved bodies. In case you don't know, when the archaeologists were excavating Pompeii, they learned that if they poured plaster into the holes or whatever, a cast would be made of the bodies in the position they were in when covered by the Pyroclastic Flow from the Volcano.

Michelle and I started practicing our "Vesuvius Eruption Poses" so that if we were caught in the same situation, our poses would be much more creative than "AHHHH VOLCANO!!!!"

Next we headed to our hotel in the actual town of Pompeii, or as I like to call it the "Future Ruins of Pompeii." The hotel exceeded my expectations, it was very nice but also very European with one old fashioned key for each room and an interesting bathroom. We had some free time to explore the city, which isn't all that exciting, and I had the best cappuccino of my life:

The hotel put on a nice 3-course dinner for us, complete with wine and bread. Afterwards, we were exhausted and decided to go out for gelato before bed. A few people went out, but I'm not really sure what they did considering Pompeii's night life consists of a bunch of 14-year-olds wandering around the town square. 

The next morning, after a good hotel breakfast (still no protein involved), we headed south to Paestum. This is the part of the trip I knew the least about, but probably enjoyed the most. It is basically a bunch of ruins of Greek temples, which was refreshing considering how Roman ruined-out I am. The area was gorgeous as the temples were spread out in a big field. It was the first sunny day we have had in June and that combined with a cool sea breeze made for perfect weather. 

I also bought a small bottle of a southern Italy specialty, Limoncello and had lunch at a restaurant called "Happy Sandwich" so all in all Paestum was a positive experience. Around 2, we headed back and made it to Orvieto by 7:30, just in time to not start my paper due tomorrow.

We have less than two weeks left here in Orvieto! It's crazy and I'm expecting it will go by quickly considering how many activities there are and how much homework I don't want to do. Next field trip will be to the seaside town of Tarquinia, so hopefully the weather will be nice on Wednesday for that!