July 5, 2015

After a crazy, long trip starting in Santorini, Greece and finally ending in Naples, Italy, we are finally here!  It took 55 hours including:  2 ferry rides (the first was 8 hours, the second was 15 hours), 3 train rides, a night spent “sleeping” in a hotel lobby, and 6 hours walking around Patras, Greece, and a bus ride, but we made it without killing each other!  Seriousl, it was a ridiculously long trip and the worst part is that we found out we could have flown directly from Santorini to Naples for about an extra $100 or so…probably would have been worth it, but the journey is half the fun, right?!!  We did finally make it at about 10 pm last night (4th of July) and as soon as we were checked into our hotel, we got out to find some pizza for dinner.  Since Naples is the home of pizza, there are about 100,000 pizza places and they are all fabulous!

After a quick dinner, we went to bed so that we could get up first thing in the morning and set off for Pompeii.  We took the train out there which was only about 45 minutes or so.  It was Sunday, so of course, it was crowded, but it was fine with us.  It was insanely hot…felt just like Florida!  When we got to the ruins, we were pretty excited to find out that the first Sunday of each month is free, so we didn’t even have to pay…YAY!  Pompeii was pretty cool.  It was completely covered in ash when Mt Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, and everything was very well preserved until it was dug up centuries later.  We spent a couple of hours walking all through the town (which was much bigger than I imagined) and saw lot of cool stuff.  They had some of the buildings open that you could walk through to see the remaining artwork on the walls and the pottery that has been recovered.  They also had a couple of petrified corpses of people that died in the eruption.

Ruins of Pompeii

Ruins of Pompeii

Ruins of Pompeii

Ruins of Pompeii

Ruins of Pompeii

Ruins of Pompeii

Pottery from Pompeii

Pottery and crafts from Pompeii

Petrified person from Pompeii

Petrified child from Pompeii

The bath in Pompeii

Ruins of Pompeii

Ruins of Pompeii

In tact artwork in Pompeii

Ruins of Pompeii

Ruins of Pompeii

Theater in Pompeii

Theater in Pompeii

Theater in Pompeii

Artwork in Pompeii

Temple of Isis in Pompeii

After a few hours in Pompeii, we went over to the next town, Herculaneum.  This town is much smaller than Pompeii, but because it was covered in lava, instead of ash, it is much better preserved.  There were quite a few less tourists, so we were able to walk through lots of the buildings and check everything out for a while.  We didn’t spend too long here because it was HOT and we still had to have time to make it up to Mt. Vesuvius.

Ruins of Herculaneum

Mt Vesuvius and Herculaneum

Mt Vesuvius over Herculaneum

Ruins of Herculaneum

Ruins of Herculaneum

Ruins of Herculaneum

View of Mt Vesuvius

Following Herculaneum, we found a shuttle that took us up to the “base camp”: for Mt. Vesuvius.  From there, it’s about a 1 km hike to the top of the mountain.  1 km doesn’t sounds like much, but at a 14% grade and over 90 degrees, it was tough!  (or maybe I’m just really out of shape!)  We did make it to the top (eventually) and it was totally worth the climb.  The view of Naples and the Bay were beautiful.  We could see the entire city and the surrounding area.  After a quick loop around the caldera, we came back down (much easier than us) and caught the shuttle back into town.

Crater of Mt Vesuvius

View from Mt Vesuvius

View from Mt Vesuvius

Mt Vesuvius

We made it back to our hotel in time to go out for dinner (pizza, of course!) and gelato for dessert.  Every place we have eaten here has been fantastic.  The pizza is so good and I had a Caprese salad for lunch today that was amazing.  I really hadn’t ever been a huge fan of tomatoes, but I swear I ate an entire plate of them and what must have been a pound of mozzarella!  Anyway, tomorrow we are doing the super touristy, Hop On Hop Off bus to see the sights in Naples.  They are kind of cheesy, but it’s really the easiest way to hit all of the highlights of the city.  🙂