Pompeii

Friday after camp my mom and sister arrived in Porto in their rental car to pick up me and Claire and head to Pompeii for the weekend. It was so nice to be in a car, and not have to drag luggage anywhere and not have to change modes of transportation 3 times to get somewhere. We had a nice drive down and got to our B&B about 7:40. The places was amazing and had a chef on staff so we decided to stay for dinner. We were bombarded with appetizers, antipasti, spaghetti, tortellini pesto, and of course regional vino rosso. The dinner was amazing and afterwards we had a chance to cool off in this pool. There were only about 10 other people at the B&B so we chatted with other people and just had a relaxing night.

We woke up in the morning at 8am and had a fabulous breakfast and headed to Mt. Vesuvius, because you have to hike up the last part to get the carter and we wanted to do that before it got to the hottest part of the day. It took us about an hour to get to the top and it was a pretty difficult climb. The views were amazing and we even saw some smoke and hear some of the weird volcano noises. 

This wonderful lady had a booth on the trail and she sold handmade jewelry made out of the volcanic ashes and rocks and we ended up buying a few things from here because it was really beautiful. The walk down was even harder then the walk up because the trail is sooooo slippery is was really hard to keep your footing. But overall it was one of the best things I’ve done in Italy so far.  

After we got down the mountain we headed to the ruins a Herculaneum, because we heard that although they are smaller then Pompeii they are much better preserved and so we wanted to check it out. Although it was much smaller you got a much better perspective on how life was actually like and there were many more complete buildings left, although a lot of the detailed pieces have been taken from the ruins and put in museums.  

We were able to see all the major places without a guide in about an hours and then we were on the road again to head back to Pompeii. We realized at the first ruins that without a guide everything kind of looked the same and you didn’t get much out of it so once we got to Pompeii we decided to hire an official guide to take us around. His names was Bruno and we was an archeologist who was working on the outskirts of Pompeii specifically in the areas where they would plant and gather grapes to make wine. He took us around the ruins for 2 hours and was an amazing guide. We gave us so many more details they we would have never known. We was worth the money 100 times over. The ruins there were unbelievable. They were HUGE and unlike Herculaneum they left some things in the houses and buildings which was cool to see. We got to see the famous bodies that were preserved once they were covered in ash and it was completely unreal. 

We were all exhausted by the end of the tour and headed back to the B&B. We got in the pool for about an hour and then sat down for dinner. We had fish that was in the ocean that morning and on our plate that evening. It was delicious. We had a few bottles of wine and talked with the B&B owners till the early morning. 

We were going to venture into Naples before going back to Porto, but the owners suggested we go to Sorentto instead. It is supposedly when the Sirens are from. We had an interesting train ride down there, it was completely packed. But we arrived and decided to take a little train tour through the town. It was a great tour and just want we needed. Everything was beautiful, but we had to get going to make it back to Porto before the Euro2012 finals. The drive home was through all the mountains in the middle of Italy. We got caught in a hail storm of all things on the way back, but the car didn't get damaged so it  turned out OK. 

I am headed out tonight for the 4th of July and to celebrate my last night in Porto with the girls!! Many more pictures and blog entries to come! Ciao.