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Published: December 7th 2007
We couldn’t get enough of Italy so we decided to explore even more after mom left. From Rome we headed down to Naples and then onto a smaller town called Sorrento. On our way we met a great couple from New Jersey and another woman that lived in Santa Fe, NM for 30 years. She knew my elementary school! Small world!
Sorrento was this fantastic, little (very touristy) Italian town. It was basically our home base for exploring Pompeii and what we hoped would be the best pizza in the world. After all, Naples is the home of pizza so we figured that it would still be pretty good an hour away! Thank goodness we were right! At first glance our pizzas didn’t look like anything special but that just proves that you can’t tell a pizza by its cover! It just kind of melted in our mouths!
Pompeii was BY FAR the coolest set of “old rocks” that we visited in all of Europe. So much of the old city is still there so it makes it very easy to imagine how these people lived so long ago. We think of ourselves as so advanced but their lives
That is one OLD dog!
There weren't nearly as many dogs running around Italy as in Greece but every now and again you would run into then. This particular fellow picked Pompeii as a nice place to live!may have not been that different from ours. A few of the highlights for me were the bakery, the brothel, the bar, the spa and the grooves in the roads from the carriages pulled by horses! We got an audio guide and that little thing supplied more information than you could possibly absorb in one day!
In the bakery you could still see the oven, the area where they stored the bread and even the “grinders” for the wheat that donkeys would pull in circles! The brothel just blew me away! I guess I figured that this concept was something that developed later in time but clearly that was a very stupid assumption! There were three rooms with concrete beds and concrete pillows. Above the entrance to each of these rooms were “suggestive pictures” that they think were sort of a menu! The men could come in and choose their item! There was also graffiti all over the walls about which prostitute has a disease, which one was good to choose etc…. Isn’t that crazy? And to think that if that wonderful volcano hadn’t exploded we never would have known those fun facts! The bars/restaurants had bars with bowls
A sun dial!
Everything was so well preserved at Pompeii including this sun dial! built into the top. These were used to keep drinks cold. Not terribly different from the giant, plastic Coke things you see these days! Glen Ivy day spa doesn’t have anything on the spa they had there! There were several rooms with different air and water temperatures so they could gradually work up to the hot baths! They even had an elaborate heating system using air spaces under the floor and in the walls! Oh yes, and the grooves in the road. You could see them at the intersections next to the large blocks of rock they had for people to use to cross when the city flooded.
Anyhow, if you ever get the chance to visit Pompeii I would HIGHLY suggest it. Once again I do not think that I would give the place justice if I tried to explain what happened there so I have included a link!
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/europe/pompeii.html
Being the “let’s cram too much into one day” humans that we are, after Pompeii we decided we needed to take the public bus down the Alfami coast. We had already heard three stories about the buses not being dependable and people getting stuck, but of
Just as he was
Kind of creepy yet fascinating! course that wasn’t going to happen to us! One couple even had to pay 75 euros to take a taxi back to Sorrento from Alfami! Anyhow, we went and the sunset on the way south was spectacular. We were going away from it though so I was having to stick the camera out the bus window and Yuri was telling me when we were approaching a clearing! We managed to get some nice photos with this team work! We didn’t want to push our luck too much with the bus situation so we got off at the first stop in Positano. We waited nearly an hour for the bus but it did finally come. There were several people ahead of us in line but when those doors opened, it was VERY obvious that none of us would be getting on that bus. It was absolutely packed to the gills. One couple was very pushy though and came darting from the end of the line to force themselves onto the stairs. Meanwhile the man in the front seat was saying something like “Don’t try and get on this bus. You have no idea what we have been though. Please just let
us go!!! Poor thing sounded desperate. So, the bus continued on without us and we were told it would be one more hour until the next one arrived. Luckily there was a bar next door so we ordered ourselves a huge glass of draft beer. I had literally taken one sip when I looked out the window in time to see the bus go by! It has been two minutes, not an hour! I’m pretty sure I have not moved that fast in a long time. I nearly knocked the table, chairs and anything else in my path over as I darted out the door! The bartender (who was trying to help us with out dilemma) and another woman that had been waiting were right behind me! We ran along side the bus banging on it until he stopped! There wasn’t much room on this one either but we were happy to stand. I think the worst part of the whole story is that we had to leave that great big beer behind!
That evening we headed back to the land of magic pizza! Luckily it was just as good the second night as the first!
The next
day was a VERY long travel day from Sorrento to San Gimignano in Tuscany via three different trains and two buses! It couldn’t have been more worth it though! We had rented a room in a farm house near San Gimignano so the owner picked us up from the bus station that evening. He then took us to the place that we would call home for the next three days. I wish it were really home! This place was amazing! We had reserved a room but because it was the slow season he gave us an apartment for the same price! When we walked in, there was this adorable set-up on the kitchen table including two bottles of wine they produce there, a small bottle of olive oil that they produce, some fresh squeezed orange juice and croissants for breakfast! The farm house was 1.25 miles from San Gimignano so he offered to take us to the grocery store or to town for dinner that evening. We chose the grocery store because we assumed that he would be bringing us home as well! It didn’t occur to us that this was NOT his plan until he asked us if we
knew how to get back as we were piling out of the car. Sure we do! Neither of us had paid any attention to how we got to the grocery store. Why would we? He was taking us home!
After wandering around the grocery store for fifteen minutes we decided that we just didn’t have the energy to try and make something ourselves. Good choice! Remember how I said that we had our best Italian meal in Florence? I lied! However, I will have to say that the food at this place wins but the ambiance at the other one wins. We have the obnoxiously loud American girl in the corner of the restaurant to thank for that. Everyone in the restaurant knew exactly what she was talking about for our entire meal. It made me SOO mad because she was ruining our evening! We ordered a giant carafe of wine to try and help us ignore her but it was difficult! As you can imagine, we got lost on the way home. We walked down the wrong road for at least a mile before we assumed that it just couldn’t be right! We were well on our way
on the correct road when I stepped off to the side to avoid an oncoming car and ate *%$* !!! It was so dark that I couldn’t see that the area I was stepping into was actually a 3 foot deep gutter! I was OK but the eggs I was carrying for breakfast the next morning didn’t fare so well!
The next two days were a fantastic mix of walking a lot, relaxing a lot and eating wonderful meals that we prepared ourselves! We loaded up with WAY too much food at the grocery store (that walk home was interesting) but we sure ate well! The best part was that Yuri cooked both of the meals. No I wasn’t being lazy, he wanted to! I actually had a really hard time staying out of the kitchen but he insisted! The first night he BBQed a steak for himself and some veggies. Unfortunately he has been using a propane BBQ for so long that he forgot how hot the coals can get and burned his steak! We also had mushroom ravioli with marinara sauce and garlic foccacio bread! On the second night we had artichoke ravioli with pesto sauce, a
salad and more bread! These meals gave the Florence one and the loud mouth girl one a run for their money! So good, in fact, that I have supplied pictures for you!
Another highlight of our time at the farm house was doing laundry! We hand washed everything in the sink and then hung it all on the clothes line to dry! Doesn’t sound very exciting, I know, but for some reason it was kind of fun!
Everyone goes to Tuscany to ride bikes right? Where the heak did that idea come from? They aren’t called the Tuscan HILLS for nothing! It seems to be a touristy request though so our farm house supplied bikes for us to use. Going down the hills was fantastic! It was the up part that caused a few problems! We ended up riding our bikes down the hills and then walking them most of the way back up. We would give it a valiant effort in the beginning but ended up dying. Our goal was to ride out into the hills, eat our lunch and then go back to the house. After about 1.5 hours of riding we decided to eat lunch
at home and include a bottle of wine or two!
Ok, if you ever get the chance go to Pompeii AND Tuscany. Everyone seems to go during the summer and I am sure it is beautiful then but being there when the colors were changing was amazing. The unfortunate news is that it was WAY too cold to use the infinity pool that they have there! This was a fantastic way to leave Italy.
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Dan
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Nice to see you guys having a good time. Don't forget us poor souls slaving away for the Man! Have a couple of pints for me. I know this old Sicilian named Gino that can get you any thing you want! You might owe him a favor later on though. Dan and Kristy