Blogs from Pompei, Campania, Italy, Europe - page 13

This weekend was pretty darn fun. On Friday morning, we left and piled into a bus and drove to Pompeii to take a tour of the ruins. As you know, I was really looking forward to this because I had studied a lot about Pompeii in high school because the Latin courses we take are based on characters who live in Pompeii. Anyways, we decided to take a tour through Naples first, which we were advised was going to be interesting. To quote Rick Steves (a well-known tour guide publisher), "with Sardena an hour away from Naples, I don't know why you'd ever spend the night there, but, if for some reason you have to, here's a list of hotels." Another thing he suggests is to "watch the traffic cops try to enforce traffic laws. ... read more

Leaving from Sorrento by train we traveled for about an hour before arriving at Pompeii. As soon as we left the train we entered the gauntlet of people trying to sell you anything they could. There were people everywhere peddling bottle water, sunglasses, tour books, beach towels, and even guided tours through Pompeii from a "bona fide Ph. D." in archealogy (as was supposedely evident by their name tags which listed their names, Ph. D.). Why would a bona fide doctor of archealogy be whoring himself out to Pompeii tourists at the train station for 50 Euros? Who knows. Anyway, we blew by the makeshift marketplace beside the train platform as quickly as we could, picked up some audio guides and made our way into Pompeii. It wasn't long after we were inside that we realized ... read more

Cinque Terre....arriving in the North of Italy what more could I want but to spend my b-day on the Mediterranean coastline!! We ended up spending about a week here camping in our new home in a beautful Valley with the beach only 5min shuttle away!! Feels great to have the sun beaming down again!! A few days on the beach and a full day exploring the trails linking Cinque Terre, five typical Italian villages on the coast. Five hous up down and around, stunning views, we deffinately earned our gelati in the end!! With the girls heading to Venice i took the opportunity to visit Pompei seeing as i missed it last time in Italy! So off i was south of Rome, staying in Naples and hoping to stay clear of the Mafia!!! so far ... read more

After pottering about in the south, I became concious of time running out on my vacation so I made the decision to put in some miles on the autostrada. Normally, freeways are meant to make time and not very scenic however, that’s not the case with the A3. Cutting through beautiful mountains, the A3 offers visual delights with enough sweeping bends to keep things interesting. As freeways go, you could do a lot worse than the A3. After a day on the autostrada, I had reached the famed Amalfi coast. I had an interest in Amalfi since my father spent time there during World War II. My father fought in the war as a member of the Royal Canadian Artillery that was involved in the forgotten Italian campaign. After being wounded, he was sent to recover ... read more

Wow, today was interesting. Long story short, we climbed a volcano (yes, we took it upon ourselves to exercise) and visited Pompei. Mt. Vesuvius was amazing! It was quite a hike. Just as in Athens, it started raining. From the ship the weather seemed to be alright, so there we were standing at the bottom of the volcano in shorts and tank tops shivering. Luckily (as we found in well, ALL of the ports), there was someone nearby waiting to sell us Italia jackets. From Vesuvio we went to the Pompei excavation site. HUGE place. We had an interesting tour guide to say the least. He had a different type of "tour" in mind for us though. He told us to meet him at a certain destination and to turn "left" to meet him and ... read more