Europe Day 2 - Pompeii, Vesuvius, Naples

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We spent the morning in Pompeii, which if I remember correctly is about 45 minutes away from where my brother lives. What can you say about Pompeii? It's huge, and unreal, and a giant city of ruins. If you're into that kind of thing, which I totally am, you can easily spend the entire day there.

I've wanted to see Pompeii since I was 15 and began learning about it. Such a well preserved place would be fascinating. For some reason I didn't expect it to be so large. I know, it's an entire city that was destroyed. You'd think that would have been my first clue. Yet I had this notion in my head that you'd really only be able to wander through parts of the ruined city, not the ENTIRE ruined city. I was wrong. 

We did a quick tour of the place and ended up getting through half the city in about 2 and a half hours. Because Dan had a pedometer on his phone, which is a totally genius app to use when sightseeing, he was able to keep track of the miles we walked here - it was 5 miles. We did get a little lost and turned around, but it all worked out. Besides, getting a little lost in Pompeii sounds so much better than getting lost in someplace like Waco. Right?

Of course we worked up an appetite, so the only logical choice was pizza and capresse salad. Do you really need to wonder if it tasted good? 

Afterwards my sister in law (aka the best tour guide ever) picked us up and drove us to the infamous Vesuvius. The hike to the top of the volcano is not long at all. Less than a mile. But it's a bit steep of a hike up a loose gravely surface. There's a little bit of a railing and the view is fantastic. Unfortunately it was a very cloudy day so we could not see the ocean from the top. But the cloud view was really cool. 

I was slightly disappointed though. There was no steam, no lava, no rumblings, no nothing at the volcano. Just rocks and dirt. I'm not saying I want to watch a volcano erupting in my face. But it would have been nice to see some steam, or feel a little rumbling through the grounds. As Dan put it, I was quite underwhelmed. Still, it's worth seeing.

After that we went to downtown Naples where Becky took us to some amazing view points overlooking the ocean. Of course it just happened to be sunset and it was gorgeous. These pictures were taken from the top of the Castle St. Elmo. Just beneath it is a beautiful monastery, and below that the city. You can see all the major attractions of the city from this viewpoint. Becky pointed out where they were all at from up here, and the following day we wandered around the main part of the city.

Afterwards we stopped at a little artisan store where they make the most beautiful cameos. Some were large, some were small, all were hand crafted from ocean shells. Of course I bought one, and because they owners knew someone who Becky knew, they gave my 50% off. I had to get one or else it would have been extremely rude. They were absolutely exquisite.

From there we got a few more evening shots from downtown Naples, followed by dinner at a pizzeria near the University. In walking to this pizzeria we discovered a soccer game going on. The best was the giant tv set up in an alcove at a church, and the church steps full of people watching the soccer game. Fantastic.

By the end of the night I was feeling pretty exhausted. It didn't help that I'd only had about 2 bottles of water, and the final count on the pedometer for the day was 15 miles. I learned to pay better attention to hydration, but the day was still amazing.