Rome to Naples by very fast train, fast and very comfortable. We'd booked into the Napoli Centrale B & B, same place that Wayne and Min stayed in, thanks for the tip, Wayne. It was very close to the station. On the way down Barry wondered if it would be easier to take a taxi but when we looked closely at the map it didn't seem very far from the station, although sometimes maps can be deceiving. We decided to walk and this was a very wise decision because the hotel is just across the square from the station, a few minutes walk.
Naples is a very different place from Rome, like a crazy adolescent. Lots of people, lots of noise of sirens and horns blasting all the time although I have to say that we didn't actually see any more of Naples than the area around the hotel and train station. We would have liked to have seen more but hadn't allowed enough time. We were there for 2 days, 1 night and that night was wet and freezing cold.
After getting sorted at the hotel we set out to see Pompeii. This involved a slow, rattley train trip of about an hour after first a bit of confusion re buying tickets but we were helped out by a friendly, elderly gentleman who took us to a shop where we bought tickets, seems that shops in the station are legitimate ticket sellers, then took us down stairs, along more corridors and finally to the escalator going down to the platform. After making sure that we knew the time of the train and the name of the train and the name of the station to get off at he then asked us for a €5 tip. We had to laugh - I'd already decided that we should give him something because he'd saved us a lot of stress and time. I doubt that we'd have got to the platform in time to get that train without his help and would have had to wait for a later one. So we gave him €5 he went off happy and so did we.
The train was packed with people - locals and tourists, and we started off standing but I got a seat after not too long. However, because of the rain I didn't get to see anything of the coast which was disappointing.
We got to Pompeii, by which time it was raining quite heavily, and booked onto a tour at the station, bought fabulous plastic, poncho type things to keep us dry, walked across the road and there it was - the entrance to Pompeii! woo hoooo
What an experience, so much much more than I ever thought it would be. So humbling, after the huge scale of the structures of government and the ruling classes of the ancient Romans of Rome, to walk amongst the homes, shops, taverns, streets and spaces of the common people who'd lived there so many centuries ago and then wiped out by a terrific upheaval.
Humbling not only because of the people who lived there, but also because of the enormous amount of work that archeologists and others have painstakingly done to dig away the meters of ash and pumice to reveal what we saw. Restorations that have been done show where the original structure and the new construction meet.
Once again our guide was wonderful and she gave us so much good information thereby enabling us to understand what we were seeing and then, when the tour finished and we wandered about on our own, we had a much better experience than we otherwise would have had if we hadn't had the tour.
It was only the threatening rain storm, there isn't any shelter there, that finally got us out of the place and back onto the train.
Pompeii is another place which, to me , is simply indescribable so here are some photos.
means welcome in Latin
Wheel ruts can be seen worn into the stone roads. The big stones in the middle of the road are stepping stones so that people could cross from one side to the other without walking in the crap on the road.
original flooring
a wall drawing
This was in a take-away shop, the big pot were cooked food containers
entrance to a grand house
a street
the next day we went to another archeological wonder called Herculaneum which is similar to Pompeii in that it was destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius but was buried by mud instead of ash, which meant that a lot of the wooden parts of buildings weren't destroyed. It was a much smaller town than Pompeii of a few thousand people and is a lot more intact. It was equally as worthwhile to see as Pompeii, we thought anyway. We didn't have a guide this time and given what we had learned from the guide in Pompeii we felt ok with just walking about by ourselves. We could tell which places were shops and which were houses, the grand houses from ordinary houses etc.
This place is much closer to Naples on the same train line to Pompeii so we got train tickets easily. It was a warm sunny day and we had a very enjoyable time there.
I'll post pictures from Herculaneum tomorrow because now it's past midnight and I need to sleep
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