Hello everyone! We are now solidly into Week Two of our Italian adventure, and it has fallen to me to catch the blog world up with how we have been spending our days. First of all, I should clarify that we are, in fact, on mainland Italy. In order to get here, we took an overnight ferry from Sicily to Naples, which many people were worried about. Motion sickness is not to be taken lightly when you’re sharing a room that’s about 20 square feet total. But, as far as I know, not a single dinner was lost on the 12 hour ride! In fact, several people (myself included) said they actually slept better with the rocking of the boat.
Once we got to Naples, we had a long bus ride to our hotel in Vico Equense, where we got to stay for four whole nights! This may not seem like a lot, but since we have been doing a TON of travelling, it certainly felt like a long time. We also had our first full free day in Vico Equense. Several people went to Naples or Sorrento, and some stayed around the tiny city. We found laundry services and befriended the people who own a pub called Tito’s across the street from our hotel. It became our hangout spot in Vico Equense after our daily excursions, and we all enjoyed having a few “American” cocktails and appetizers there.
But we didn’t really spend too much time in the town itself, honestly. Besides our free day, we used the hotel as a jumping off point for excursions to Pompeii, Herculaneum, Cumae, and the Archaeological Museum of Naples. For all of these sights (which we saw in three jam-packed days), we had the same guide: Gianni. I can’t speak for the whole group, but I think most of us really enjoyed his informative and comical way of speaking about the things we were seeing.
I honestly don’t know how to express Pompeii, which we saw on our first day with Gianni, in words. Everyone knows about the plaster casts, but there is so much more to the city. Firstly, it is a full city, a fact which a lot of people overlook. We toured it from 9 am to almost 5 pm and we still hadn’t seen nearly all of the houses, shops, and theaters. Nonetheless, the tour felt comprehensive; we saw floor mosaics, original statues, and even an ancient brothel. It was mind-boggling to know that all of these buildings had been preserved for nearly 2000 years, almost exactly as they were.
Herculaneum, which was also destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, was very much like Pompeii but much smaller. We only spent half a day there and we saw almost everything. Cumae, meanwhile, was sort of a bust. We had to drive an hour from Herculaneum to get there, only to discover that the major site of this first Greek settlement was closed for renovation. We were all a little bummed out, but we still got to see an amazing view of the sea and surrounding cities in Cumae.
This morning, we checked out of our hotel and said goodbye to Vico Equense. We drove to the Archaeological Museum in Naples, which really tied together all of the things we had seen. For example, many of the original mosaics, frescoes, and statues from Pompeii and Herculaneum were there. It was a three hour tour, led by Gianni, before lunch and a long bus ride to Rome.
Something I’m noticing as we continue on with our trip is that we aren’t only going in geographic order from Southern Italy to Northern, but also in a quasi-chronological fashion. We’ve seen so many things about the ancient Greeks and Romans in such a short time, and now we’ll be touring such famous Roman imperial sites as The Coliseum and the Forum. It’s so hard to grasp all the things we are learning about, but the order in which we see them is really helping me out!
We’ll be in Rome for two whole weeks, so expect many blog posts from us while we’re touring this amazing and historic city!
– Lacey
Blog Team
Italy 2012
