So, the last blog ended with the group of us in Rome. We left the next day for the town of Naples. Now, people told us that Naples was a very sketchy town in that it was ruled by Mafia and there were large amounts of crime around the city. It is the city in Italy where you are most likely to get pickpocketed and so you have to kind of be on your guard the whole time, especially on buses or anywhere that's crowded at all.
The Sunday of the week was spent just getting to Naples. We took a train that was only a few hours long and it wasn't too hard getting our way around or even finding every thing. The train station in Rome is very big and there are tons of people, but the trains are roomy enough. We arrived in Naples and took 4 taxis to the hotel. I have to tell you, the sight on the way to the hotel from the view of the taxi was not pretty.
Just driving through the city, you could see why it sounded so sketchy, and this was without the viewing or hearing of a crime. There was trash everywhere! I've been to some pretty big cities, Rome being one, Boston, New York City, Minneapolis; and none of them had the trash that even came close to this city. It was everywhere and it reeked getting out.
From just judging, I didn't really like Naples too much. But, we got to the hotel and it was really nice and clean with the rooms being pretty big. Later that night, me and Nick just walked around for a few miles and got to know the city that was around the hotel. After actually doing a little and seeing things, my opinion of the city changed immensely and it actually wasn't that bad. Still not as cool as Rome though. ;)
The first day in Naples, we went to a museum that was down the road from our hotel. It was the Archeological museum of Naples and it was awesome. It contained a lot of mozaic like murals that were recovered from the town of Pompeii. For some of you that dont know, Pompeii was a town on the coast of Italy and was completely smothered in ash and lava from the volcano, Mt. Vesuvius. People were killed instantly and the preservation of some of the things was impressive. The museum contained something that we weren't really studying, but interested me a lot because it had paintings that are from the era that interests me. Which is around 1400-1850. It had around 8 highly detailed paintings that were huge, with a designed ceiling and a statue of Atlas holding the world on his back in the middle of the room.
The first day in Naples consisted of nothing. We were supposed to go to Pompeii, but transportation workers decided to boycott and so transportation was not running that day. So it just became a day of relaxation and sleeping in. Found a really cheap pizza place where the pizza is only about $4 though. :)
For the third day, we took a bus and went to the town of Pompeii...or...what's left of it anyways. Like I explained before, the place was completely buried in ash and it was uncovered and excavated. The place was huge and it housed a lot of people. The preservation that the ash did was incredible and so we got to see a lot of the murals that were still left over and visible. We were there the entire day and walked around checking out the ruins. The last stop was something almost like the colosseum, but on a much, much smaller scale. We then went home.
Ruins of Pompeii with Mt. Vesuvius in the back.
The fourth day was almost like the third. We took another train to a small town that I forgot the name of. Outside of the town are the ruins of Herculanem. It was another town that was almost like Pompeii. It met the same results, but was a bit further from the volcano and so, it was it a day or so later. It was much smaller than Pompeii and ruins are still being excavated to day. It had very well preserved art and scientists were able to dig up where bodies once were and made casts of them.
Casts of people from the volcano in Herculanem
Town outside of Herculanem
Preserved are in Herculanem
The fifth day, we went to another small town called Pasteum. It has some of the most preserved temples that are still around today. Most of the structures that are preserved are just the outside columns and some of the tops. But, the sheer size of the things was massive. The columns were built in pieces and they each weighed at least over 5 tons. The size of them and actually seeing them was awesome. There were about 3 of them and each one was supposed to be a temple to the gods. One being for Posidieon, Hera and Demeter.
Our last day, Saturday, was somewhat like a free day. It started out with our Professor talking about going to some island called Capri. He never really told us why were going there. We just walked over to the harbor and got on a big boat that was about an hour long trip. Some of the people didn't fare to well because they get motion sickness pretty easy. We landed on the island and it was gorgeous. The cliffs went high and you could see green from the trees everywhere. There were little beaches and a harbor that housed a ton of boats with a small town that was jutted into the cliffs.
Anyways, after we arrived, Mark just told us that we had a free day and that we could do whatever we wanted. So, me, Nick, Evan, Mark and his wife, Rhett rented a boat for 2 hours. It was pretty cheap when split between the five of us and we circled the entire island. We saw huge cliffs, swam around in the Mediterranean, and did some cliff jumping.
The breeze from the boat and the weather was so relaxing. It was just nice with the breeze going through and the sun hitting you. We stopped once and decided to jump in and swim around. The water was really blue and salty. But, the temperature was just perfect to swim in. We drove around on the boat more and got to some cliffs that people were jumping off of. They were around 30-40 feet high and Mark jumped off it without hesitation. I went on it after a while and it was quite an adrenaline rush and really fun. We finished around the island, I got something to eat and we went home, ready to head to the villa the next day. It was by far my most favorite day in Italy so far. :)
Banana Split in Capri
Cliffs!
Capri!
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