naples/capri/pompeii- BEST weekend ever

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i have SO much to write! this past weekend we went to naples, capri, and pompeii and it was the greatest weekend of my life! i am so lucky to get to do all these awesome things and go all these beautiful places, i will be forcing my kids to study abroad when theyre in school, this is literally the best time ever.

so friday morning we left for naples around eight am, i think it took about four hours. i slept a lot of the way so it wasnt too bad. we were supposed to go to pompeii first on friday but since it was raining we went to naples (which was originally sundays plan). well lets just say im glad we got the worst part of the weekend out of the way first. when we got to naples we had about an hour and a half to get lunch (which is usually not a lot of time for lunch in italy) and then went to the archeological museum in naples. well it was raining, and COLD in naples. it has been so warm here in italy this past weekend was the first time i needed a jacket, which of course i didnt bring. it also hasnt rained more than two days (knock on wood) so that was a double whammy.

the bus ride into naples was an adventure in itself, there was sooo much traffic and the bus driver kept honking at the sitting still cars like they could actually go somewhere. the city is dirty, it looks like the ghetto everywhere in the city. when we finally reach the museum our instructer announces 'okay we have an hour and half for lunch, but dont go to far it can be very dangerous'....... welll then. we walked (not too far obviously) to the first pizzaria we saw, because wed all heard that naples had the best pizza in the world. i ordered my margharita pizza and it was truly amazing! ive had pizza in italy that was probably just as good, but not a lot of it, and it was back in florence so it had been a while. i was so happy with the pizza and ate every last bite.

in italy you usually eat an entire pizza to yourself, its not like america where you get huge pizzas to share. theyre bigger than say a personal pizza at pizza hut but much thinner and waaaaaay more delicious. margharita pizzas are the "plain" pizzas, sauce and cheese. i love the margharita pizzas that have the fresh mozzerella so that the cheese is in circles, not all the pizza here is like that unfortunately. naples is better because the crust isnt quite as thing as it is in rome. my favorite so far has been pizzaria ovesuvio in florence, gusta pizza in florence, and whatever this pizza place was called in naples. mmmmmmm speaking of which, tonight we are going to bufeto pizzeria (bufeto means mustache in italian) which is supposed to be some of the best in rome- ill keep you updated on my pizza touring 😊.

ANYWAY after the delicious pizza eating we went to the archeological museum in naples of pompeii. it was pretty much a musuem of statues and frescos (paintings), but it was pretty cool. since im in a history class called rome through the ages, me and my classmates had to follow our professor around while he lectured us. hes not bad to look at but listening to him can be rather boring. but he has a really cool name- luca larpi. we spent about two hours in the museum then headed to a little town called vico equense, about an hour out of naples, to our hotel. on the way out of naples there was just as much traffic and some kind of incident where dumpsters were turned over and ambulances were involved. also on the way out we saw a shanty town, id never seen such a sight. there houses were made from boxes and garbage and we saw little children running through them and there were a lot of hungry dogs around the city. it was really sad.

i was glad to see our hotel was not near naples, and the hotel we stayed in: aequa hotel, was BEAUTIFUL. it was right on the edge of some cliffs with an amazing view of incredibly blue water and mount vesuvious. the rooms were very comfortable and a nice size and we had a balcony and were all around much better than the one we stayed in in venice. this place was amazing, and if my parents were rich thats where id be getting married. SERIOUSLY so beautiful. that night we went to a random restaurant that looked good and i got a pizza and some wine (yes i ate pizza for every meal that weekend because naples is supposed to have the best!). the place was really good and pretty cheap, you ordered wine not knowing how much theyd bring you and it ended up being a bottle for only five euro, and you could get it to go for only three! it still amazes me how wine literally is cheaper than water.

saturday morning we left bright and early at 745 AM to head back to naples to catch the hydrofoil boat to the island of capri. it was SOOO windy that we werent sure if wed be able to get on the boat to go, and i was really worried and was going to be sooo upset if we hadnt been able to go, but we were! the boat ride from naples was about an hour to get to the island, and ive never seen such a beautiful place in my life. ive never been anywhere tropical or to the carribbean or anywhere like pretty like that, so this was so amazing for me. there were incredible cliffs and the water was so so blue. we took a bus to annacapri which is above capri and got on a chair lift that took us to the highest point on the island. i was pumped for the chair lift but when i finally got to it and saw it was only a one person chair lift and it REALLY freaked me out. i was a little terrified, but it ended up being the second best thing i did that weekend. it was so beautiful, the pictures cannot do it justice but ill post them anyway. once we got to the top we took about a hundred pictures then came back down the chair lift and got some lunch. the rest of our time in capri we pretty much spend walking around, looking in a bunch of random shops including a famous perfume place on the island. it was a really nice day and it was nice to have free time not being forced into a tour or to go in some museum. which is usually nice, it was just good to have time to explore on our own.

that night we went back to the same restaurant and i got pizza diavola which is salami or pepporoni like meat with hot peppers on it. it was very delicious. my friend robby got pizza with sausage and french fries! that too was delicious! they have pretty crazy pizzas here.

sunday was the BEST day. it was sad to say goodbye to our beautiful hotel but we checked out around 8 am and headed to pompei. i never realized how huge it was. an entire town destroyed but preserved. it was really awesome to see. we spent about four hours walking around pompei, again following luca larpi as he lectured to us. it was so cool, even some paintings on the walls survived. you could see some of the colomns and such that had burn marks on them. and my favorite part, when we went into the amphitheater at the end, which is where pink floyd played in live at pompeii! which is a freaking awesome pink floyd movie if anyones interested.....

after pompei what was even cooler was that we headed up to the top of mount vesuvious. we took the bus most of the way up, but the walk was still brutal. my legs were BURNING and i needed to take drinks from my water bottle every few minutes. one of my friends with asthma was puffing away at her inhaler. it was incredibly windy, like almost knock you off the side of a volcano windy. but i was elated. i have been mesmorized by volcanoes for as long as i can remember and this was definitely one of my life goals being checked off the list right before my eyes. we finally made it to the top and it was soo worth the twenty minute intense walk. and yes, i was wearing flip flops. the top was even more windy than imaginable but so amazing. you could see smoke coming out of the top every once in a while, and of course we took a million pictures at the top so youll get to see too. you could see the entire city of naples from the top, it looked much better from up there.

vesuvious is an active volcano, they cant predict when it will erupt next but it will, and it will be a disaster for the many people that live in the surrounding areas. luckily, it wasnt the day we chose to stand right next to the crader! the walk down was much easier..

also i dont know if any of you have caught on to this but my spelling of cities is sometimes different because i get used to the italian spellings here and also write them in english so i have a lot of pompei/pompeii, rome/roma, naples/napolia, florence/firenze, venice/venizia, etc.

since this blog is so long (im sorry to those of you that are still reading) ive taken many breaks, so i can tell you mustache pizza was delicious for dinner last night. not quite as good as naples, but probably the best in rome so far! and i love gnocci, and my favortie sauce is all'arrabbiata, its like a spicy tomato sauce. soooo good.

id also like to say THANK YOUUUU to my wonderful grandparents that sent care packages!!!!! ive gotten two so far, very exciting! i now have towels, peanut butter, salt n vinegar chips, and conditioner!!!! thank you oma and popppop and mommom and poppop bill!!

sorry that was so long guys, ill try to keep up better with it and i promise to post pictures of my weekend soon for those of you that dont get on facebook because theyre amazing!

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