Pompeii, Sorrento, and more...
This weekend was a pretty fun but tiring weekend. Thursday night, my roommate Matt and I went down to the forum again and went up to the Palentine hill. This is the hill where all the emperors built their palaces. Most of the emperors just added onto the old ones, so needless to say, the entire hill is covered with the ruins. From the top of the Palentine, I got to see the Circus Maximus and also got to look down onto the Forum. I took a lot of pictures but my camera battery ran out this weekend so I can't post them. I thought I grabbed another one but it turns out that the one that I grabbed was dead. So it might be a little while before I get some pictures back up but I promise that I will.
On Thursday, my class went to Pompeii for the day. We had a guided tour of the city but I kind of wish that we didn't. I never really just got to walk around the city by myself to look around. But it was still amazing to see. The streets and the paintings that are preserved are in such great shape that it really gives you an idea what the city must have looked like. It also helps that I have studied all of it before. I could actually recognize a few things.
After Pompeii, Matt, James, and I headed down to Sorrento. Sorrento is a town on the Bay of Naples. We found a hostel there through hostelworld.com This is a really really good sight. Anyways, we ended up getting a private room for the three of us. Our place was outside of Sorrento and down a long narrow old Roman road. It did have a great view though from their terrace. Also, just down the road was the ruins of an old Roman villa on the edge of this point. But what was really cool was their was a natural bridge from the sea which form an alcove that you could swim in. The villa was built around this and a bridge was built over the natural bridge. It was really beautiful to see. The night that we got there, we went down to this place and just hung out before going to get something to eat.
On Saturday, we went down to the villa and found some rocks to hang out on. We just lounged around all day and went swimming in the Bay of Naples. We even went cliff diving too. Later that night, we went to the town and walked around and had some dinner. After dinner, we went back to our place and hung out on the terrace just talking and looking out at the sea and the Bay of Naples, which is surrounded by the lights of all the cities.
On Sunday, we slept in and then headed to Herculaneum, which is another city destroyed in 79 A.D. when Mt. Vesuvius erupted. We stayed there and looked around the ruins for almost four hours. We then went to Naples to eat and catch our train back to Rome. While in Naples, we walked and around and looked at a few churches. The one church we went in to was absolutely breathtaking. However, I will never and advise you to never go to Naples. The town was horrific. The streets were filled with trash and it smelled horrible. Also, the people did not want to talk to you at all. At dinner, the people wouldn't even say one word to us and would just waive their hand at us and walk away instead of trying to understand us. And was really bad about that is that we were trying to speak Italian to them but they would listen. In Rome, they will smile at you and wait for you to finish stuff before saying something. So I advise you never to go to Naples.
After dinner, we headed off to Rome by train. After an adventure getting home because they shut the metro down three hours early, I went to bed.
Well, that was my weekend and now I have to go and review my readings for class so that if I get called on I won't sound stupid.
posted by Attakid8 @ 1:45 PM
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