Pompeii

Visiting Pompeii was one of the highlights of the trip. I was proud of us that we even got there! We took an early train from Rome to Naples. And then once we got to Naples, we took a local train to the town of Pompeii. Some pushy guides offered to take us on an organized tour but we decided to do the Rick Steves’ tour on our own. By the end of the day my dad was calling me, “Rick” as I was the one navigating us around the ruins, which included “storytime” where I would read aloud the details of the different points of interest.

The ruins were impressive and it was amazing to learn how these people lived so many years ago. In AD 79 when Mount Vesuvius erupted, the people had no idea that it was a volcano. Within minutes, the city was covered in 30 feet of ash and lava. As you walk through the city, you can still see the grooves in the cobblestone roads from the chariot wheels. A brothel was another point of interest. This building consisted of a series of small rooms with stone beds in each room. (Sidenote: We thought the beds in our Florence hotel gave the stone beds in Pompeii a run for their money.) On the ceiling of the brothel was a “menu” of the services offered. Dad missed the menu on the first time through, so we sent him back in to see it. Mom thought he might be confused and be looking for a food menu but he figured it out.

After walking through the ruins, our plan was to take a bus to the top of Mount Vesuvius. Unfortunately, we missed the last bus going up for the day. Instead we decided to explore Naples before returning to Rome. That was a bust. Naples, at least the part of town by the train station, was a very shady place. We wandered around for a half hour before Mom said it was time to turn around and go back to the train station.