- Where: Naples, Mt. Vesuvius, Pompeii, and the island of Capri
- When: left on Wednesday, Oct 12th at midnight; returned Sunday, Oct 16th at 10pm
- Who: the organization ESN (Erasmus Student Network, which sets up bar nights and trips for erasmus/foreign students here in Bologna). I shared a room and spent most of my time with 3 of my friends from the UC program: Allison, Maia, and Alejandra.
- Why: why not?!
* Fun fact of the day: according to Wikipedia, "Pompei" is the modern Italian city built around/near the Roman ruins of "Pompeii."
Words to sum up the 4-day trip: Social, exhausting, fun, uncomfortable, windy, cold, wet, sunny, beautiful. Let's see how we managed to fit all those things into one trip:
Day #1: We left Bologna at midnight on Wednesday and arrived in Naples Thursday morning at 8am after getting a couple hours of dozing on the bus (sleeping while sitting upright and having loud, drunk people in the back of the bus for 8 hours proved difficult). Our initial welcome to the city was traffic. Keep in mind, we've got 2 big buses trying to get through a city that no one should ever try to drive in. But we arrived safe and sound at our hostel, we quickly changed our clothes, grabbed a cappuccino (or two) from the vending machine, and headed out to see Naples. Our massive tour group played a role in the traffic hold-ups that day, as we had 100 people trying to cross the street all at once. We wandered along the sidewalk that overlooks the Gulf of Naples, stopped to take touristy pictures of a fish market (live octopus, anyone?), went to a castle, ate lunch in the center (had some damn good pasta), and then took a tour of some other sites in Naples (various churches and shopping markets). After a day of walking without much sleep to start with, we returned to the hostel just before dinner to shower and rest.
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| Allison, Alejandra, Maia, and I next to the sea. |
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| The fishermen and fish at the fish market. |
Night #1: For dinner, we went out to pizza with the ESN group. For 5 euros, we got an appetizer (fried veggies and fried bread balls--sooooo good, and soo dangerous!), a real Neapolitan pizza (a-m-a-z-i-n-g), drinks, and dessert (which looked like brownies, was supposed to be cake, and was too dry to be either). After this satisfying dinner, my friends and I went back to the hostel and hung out with some Portugese guys who made us a very tasty drink: red wine, coke, and a bit of lemon juice. They had the proportions perfectly balanced. But we went to bed relatively early since we were exhausted and we had to get up early again the next morning.
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| Neapolitan pizza! Yum |
Day #2: Friday morning we were on the bus by 9am and headed to Mt. Vesuvius for the morning and Pompeii for the afternoon. I was so excited to see the crater and to wander around Pompeii (I have been with my parents once before, but I really wanted to revisit and appreciate it this time). Unfortunately, the day turned out to be nothing like I had hoped. On our drive up to the top of Vesuvius, it started sprinkling (we had been told it was definitely not going to rain that day, so Allison and Maia were wearing shorts and I just brought a light sweater). And I don't mind a little rain and a little wind, but while we were walking along the top of Vesuvius, we had to lean sideways to counteract the wind pushing us. Fortunately, it wasn't raining too much until we were ready to leave the mountain...which was mainly due to the lightning and thunder that was rapidly approaching (it's ok Mom and Dad, we made it back without getting too singed). On the bus to Pompeii we un-numbed our fingers and noses. Once in Pompeii, we had a fairly miserable experience. It started pouring as we were eating lunch in a cafe, so we bought over-priced umbrellas and ponchos, it was cold, windy, and we had to wait for at least 2 hours for our guides to get the tickets so we could enter Pompeii. Of course, getting tickets in Italy is never a simple, quick process. For our huge tour group and about 2 or 3 other groups waiting, there was only one ticket booth open AND all of us students had to show our student ID cards so we could get the student discount (of course there are no lines--imagine a huge mob of people trying to squeeze under the protection of one tent while pushing each other to try to buy tickets and have all of us students show our ID cards individually). This is why Italy is not known for its efficiency. We finally get into Pompeii and split into 2 tour groups (I of course choose the one in English), and we take a 45 minute tour down a few streets in the pouring rain, trying to maneuver around each other with wet ponchos and troublesome umbrellas to see what the tour guide is talking about. After the tour was over, none of us felt like wandering around the streets of Pompeii (which is the part I was most looking forward to for this trip) since we were soaking wet because the ponchos and umbrellas all were in the process of breaking or had already ripped/broke.
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| Me (with Alejandra's extra sweatshirt, thank god), Maia, and Allison at the top of Vesuvius...it's only a bit windy. |
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| Allison, Maia, and Alejandra when we're waiting to get into Pompeii...the poor girls' legs! But a very innovative way to use the ponchos... Oh, and this is how wet we were before the ponchos and my umbrella started breaking. |
Night #2: That night, we ate dinner in the hostel (no way were we going to brave any more weather or traffic that day) and ESN provided us with some sangria. It's still a bit strange to have people providing us with alcohol and being able to carry open bottles around on the street. We turned in fairly early that night, too, since the next morning would be yet another early morning.
Day #3: Saturday was nice and sunny--the perfect day to visit the island of Capri (a 50-minute boat ride off the coast of Naples) and what would have been a perfect day for Pompeii.... Capri was gorgeous: blue water, green vegetation, and white houses dotting the hillsides. As a group, we took a walk to some view points on the island and then walked down a LOT of stairs to a "beach" where we'd be eating our picnic lunches. After walking down all those stairs, I was excited to put my feet in the water. This desire quickly dissipated when we got to the "beach" of man-made cement, jagged rocks, and strong wind. But we ate our lunches and then curled up to take naps. Fortunately, there was a shorter way back to the main part of the island without walking back up all those stairs. After another long waiting period (in the cold wind) for our guides to get tickets for the boat-ride back, we arrive back at our hostel just in time to change for dinner.
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| Capri! |
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| Beautiful view from the main shopping part of the island. |
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| Snuggling up on the "beach" for a nap (this would be a 4-person spooning). |
Night #3: Dinner was at a restaurant with the ESN group again, but this time we had pasta with fresh seafood. After being assured we'd have at least 30 minutes back at the hostel before heading out to a club, we rushed back to the hostel after dinner to change in 5 minutes (Italians always seem to underestimate the time it takes to eat dinner in Italy). Then we took our large tour buses to a piazza where we were served limoncello by the ESN guides and socialized with students from our group and students from Siena and Naples. Once the alcohol-blanket started wearing off, we went into the club where we danced to semi-decent music for 2-3 hours. Around 3:30am, we grabbed a taxi back to our hostel, showered, and went to bed. We got 2.5-3 hours of sleep before we had to wake up early AGAIN to pack up and get on our bus to drive home.
Day #4: Before leaving Naples fully, however, we stopped at Parco della Reggia di Caserta. Yeah, I don't know what that is, either. Apparently, it's the Italian equivalent of Versailles. Some important, royal people lived in this huge mansion decades ago. We took a walk around the gardens, which was a huuuuuge lawn area with ponds and fountains and bridges and horse carriages, grabbed a bit of lunch, and then took a nice nap in the sun on the grass. Then we all piled into the buses for one last ride, and we got back to Bologna at 10pm Sunday night. And then I went to bed. The end.
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| The gorgeous gardens at the mansion. |
...And just to add, I had to wake up early yet again on Monday morning to get my fingerprints done for my residency permit. So needless to say, Monday night I slept for 11 hours straight.
More entries on classes and whatnot soon!
xoxo
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