(Theresa ordering Pizza at Pompeii)
We missed our contact in Brindisi, but found a decent pensione just above a pedestrian street (and above the shop 'Mary Poppins' picture below). It was amazing to see how the streets filled with people for the evening 'volta' or stroll around town. Of course we had to go out for Gelato.We got up at 5:00 the next morning and caught the fast train to Naples, about a four hour trip.
Napoli is an energetic, dirty, and completely anarchic city. I'm glad we were there during the day--and that we escaped alive.
My favorite typical site from Napoli was a guy riding a motorcycle with another guy on back holding a pizza and singing, flying at top speed through a tiny street filled with other motos, miniature cars and tourists. These moto drivers obey no laws or rules and certainly not common courtesy.
We were in Napoli for two reasons; to go to the National Archeology Museum--where many of the treasures from Pompeii are held, and secondly to eat Pizza (reputedly invented in Naples).
The collection from Pompeii is astounding; statues, amulets, pots, pans, surgical instruments, glassware, and dozens of mosaics (like the hippopotomus below) all preserved by being covered in ash when Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79.
The Pizza was delicious!
From Naples we took the Circumvesuviana train down to Sorrento and spent a couple of days there enjoying the beautiful coastline and visiting Pompeii.
Pompeii is a huge site with roads going in all directions, ranging from wide avenues to tiny lanes. There are proliferation of bakery and lunch counter kind of places as well as baths, theater, tiny hovels, huge houses, and of course brothels (kind of reminds one of Napoli today, without the motorcycles).
One creepy aspect of Pompeii is the many casts of bodies that can be seen in certain areas, apparently petrified within the ash.
Ciao for now,
R
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