It wasn’t easy getting up after being awake for about 36 hours the previous day. It also didn’t help that, due to the 9 hours time difference, I woke up at 3am and didn’t get too much sleep. But hey, I’m going somewhere I’ve never been before, and I’m definitely not going to sleep through that. We get up, get dressed, and meet up with our tour group.
We head to Pompeii, an ancient ruined Roman city. Pompeii was destroyed and I believe completely buried during a huge eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. I can’t imagine what it was like then, when they didn’t have the advanced equipment we have today to predict or warn of an impending eruption. They must have been going about their daily lives, as much as they could, when it erupted.
The place was big, much bigger than I expected. It seemed like we walked around quite a bit, but to see all of Pompeii, I hear we would have had to stay there a couple more days. Maybe sometime in the future we’ll go back there and explore some more.
An interesting thing I thought, was that our tour guide was a big guy. Big as in big around the mid section. Very big. Ok, you get the point. But how could that be, I thought, if he practically walks around all day, in the hot weather? I would expect someone who’s in great shape from all that exercise.
After Pompeii, we head to back to Naples, about 30 minutes by bus. We go off on our own, exploring the city. There were some really nice looking fountains, great Italian architecture, and crazy Italian drivers. The crosswalks mean nothing there…actually it does mean something. That’s where a pedestrian looks stupid, waiting and waiting for all the cars to go by before almost getting hit by that car you didn’t see.
We found Gambrinus by chance, a very popular coffee house that has welcomed royalty, celebrities, and other important people like us. It was also featured in Smart Travels with Rudy Maxa. We go in, ordered a gelato, and decided we have done Naples. Yes, gelato always ends the day.