Pompeii & Naples

After a day in Barcelona Spain, our cruise heads back eastwardly stopping in Naples, Italy.

Pompeii

As is normal with cruise ports of call, we had a limited amount of time on shore and so our plan was to make our way directly to the Naples train station and get to Pompeii as soon as possible to maximize our time. It was a short half hour train ride and before we knew it, we were in line to enter.

Pompeii was an ancient Roman city that was destroyed when the nearby Mount Vesuvius erupted and covered the entire city under volcanic ash. While it was a tragic disaster and many people died, the ash ended up preserving a great deal of the city and even its inhabitants to be rediscovered centuries later.

Exploring Pompeii

We were excited to visit. We didn’t know what to expect and both my sister and I had always been fascinated with “disaster movies”. Being able to see this site kind of fell into that realm of interest. Initially, I actually wasn’t super impressed. I thought it looked a lot like the ruins in Rome and I felt like I had “seen it before”. However as we started exploring, I realized the extent and scale of the ruins and city and slowly my appreciation for this site grew.

We would walk through buildings and courtyards and every corner you rounded was more and more ruins. You start to gain a strong appreciation for how large and complete the destruction was. How scary it must have been when this happened for the ancient Romans.

We’d walk down different streets and you could picture everyday life before this happened.

Some buildings and estates were left in very good shape too. We were able to explore some walled off estates that most certainly belonged to some of the more affluent members of the city.

 

Bodies

One of the most chilling and interesting things we encountered were the numerous bodies that were encased in ash. Because of the heat and speed of the ash that descended upon the city. Many people were likely caught by surprise and you could see the positions in which they died. It was eerie and fascinating at the same time. On many you could see the pained expressions on their faces as they likely burned or suffocated.

 

Naples

By the time we left Pompeii and made our way back to Naples we had a limited amount of time to explore the city. In fact we had very little time before our ship was to set sail again.

We did have one item on our list that we really wanted to try: Neapolitan Pizza. Pizza in Naples is a little different than the rest of Italy, so we wanted to give it a shot. We had wanted to visit L’Antica Pizzeria Da Michele. This was a famous pizzeria in Naples. However, by the time we arrived there was a HUGE line outside. We wouldn’t have made it back to our ship if we waited. Instead we hopped across the street to another pizzeria and gave the pizza there a try. I’m not sure how amazing pizza at Da Michele would have been but the pizza at D’Angeli was pretty darn good!

Sadly, we didn’t have much time to explore Naples, though I wanted to!

I continue to echo my pet peeve when it comes to cruising and being so handcuffed by scheduling. Thankfully this would be our last stop before landing back in Rome. From there we would travel by train to Bologna, considered by many to be Italy’s food capital. I can’t wait!