Naples, Pompeii, & Sorrento

9/23/2019 Rome to Naples

 Today we woke up and went to the train station.  We didn’t feel sad to leave our Rome apartment because even though we loved Rome, we didn’t really like our neighborhood.  It was noisy and full of garbage. So, we were ready to move on. Anyway, we got on the train and I read my Kindle the whole trip. I am reading The Ranger’s Apprentice series.  On the way down to Naples I saw a water buffalo!!! Do you know why water buffalo are so important? Because them make fresh buffalo mozzerella!!!! When we got to Naples we walked for 15 minutes and got to our Airbnb. It was great. It wasn’t like the one in Rome it was in a nice neighborhood called Vomero.  I had a TV in my bedroom. When we got there we settled in then went to the grocery store. After that we came home, had dinner, watched a movie in my bed then went to sleep.

Today we did homeschool and rested.  The highlight was going to lunch where we found our new favorite restaurant.   It was called Magno Pizza. And guess what I got? I got pasta. I know it’s sort of weird because its called Magno Pizza but it was really amazing pasta.  My parents got pizza. After that we went to the park for a while and then went to dinner. After that we went home and watched a movie. Then we went to bed.  We had to go to bed early because the next day we were going to …TO BE CONTINUED

…

POMPEII!!!!!

9/25/2019

Today we woke up early and went to the train station.  We had to catch the Circumvesuviana line to get to Pompeii.   When I got off the train I was so excited we were finally in Pompeii!!  We spent so much time learning about it in homeschool and now we were finally here.

Here is the history of Pompeii.  In the Roman days, Pompeii was a busy coastal town in Southern Italy with lots of shops and government buildings.  Families lived there and worked there and life was perfect until August 24th, AD 79 when they heard a humongous crash and felt the ground start to shake and saw smoke rising from the top of Mt. Vesuvius.  Within 24 hours, the whole town was buried in up to 20 feet of ash and pumice. Pumice is a spongy volcanic rock.

It was covered for almost 2000 years until some researchers were digging and discovered it in March 23rd 1748.  And then they uncovered it and found a full city under the ash and pumice. Everything was just where it was the day of the eruption.  Even people were found curled up in balls covering their faces from the fumes. Scientists found a way to keep the shape of the bodies intact using plaster casts.  The heat and ash preserved the shape of the body but the body itself disintegrated. This left and empty space in the exact shape. It is called a negative space . The scientist filled the empty space with plaster to take on the shape that the body left behind.  Animals and kids were also found as well as bread and lots of artifacts (an artifact is a thing that was made by the people of that time and from that culture).

When we got there we met our guide named Paulo.  He was an archeologist!! He is Italian and teaches at the University of Munich and in the summer he offers tours and works at an archeological site in Stabia, which is a city nearby that was also covered in ash and pumice by Vesuvius that day that Pompeii was covered.  There are two other cities that aren’t very well known. They are called Herculaneum and Oplontis.  

We started our tour with Paulo with us walking up the big ramp which was the entrance to the city.    It used to be right on the water, but the land has shifted from earthquakes and land movement over time.  We went into the city and this is what I saw. I saw a bunch of destroyed houses (the houses are all connected to each other).  The houses all look like stone and had no roofs because they collapsed from the weight of the ash and pumice. There were open doorways that you could go in and walkways and different chambers. We saw so many shops and restaurants and houses.  Some houses were large and some were small. Many still had beautiful mosaics inside!! It depended on the family and what their business is and what their job was.  

On the ground there was this long groove that shows if it is a store or a house.  The groove showed that you could use to pull the sliding door closed or open. This meant that it was a shop.  Then we went to a big square. It was the Pompeii Forum, the center of town. Just like the Roman Forum but smaller. On one end was the Temple of Jupiter because it had a statue of Jupiter’s head.  Jupiter to the Romans was like Zeus to the Greeks, the ruler of all the Gods and was the protector of Rome and the Roman cities.  

After that we saw the casts of the human bodies that were uncovered.  2,000 people died in Pompeii. But 16,000 died overall in all the towns.  Some died from being crushed or injured. Some died from the toxic volcanic gases.  Some died from suffocation. Some went to the shore to get away but there was a small tsunami and there more people died when the water receded into the sea and then when the wave came in.  

Then we saw the bathhouses.  Back then everyone in the town shared the baths. Being clean was important to the Romans. Finally we saw the theater. It is where they used to put on plays for the people.  It is different from the amphitheater, where the gladiators fought. The amphitheater was a few blocks away, but was also preserved.  The theater was very beautiful and still had marble in some places. It looked like half of the colosseum and had a stage at the front.

My favorite memory of Pompeii was the aqueduct system.  The fountains still work in the city and we got to drink the water coming down from the mountains.  

Then we went back to the train station and took it back to Naples and went home.  POMPEII WAS AWESOME!!!

9/26-9/30

The next several days we explored Naples and part of the Amalfi Coast, a town called Sorrento.  There are many awesome things about Naples. First of all, we didn’t know it was going to be such an awesome city!!  The food is AWESOME!!! Everywhere we went we had great food. One of my favorite places in Naples besides MagnoPizza was a bakery called Leopoldo.  It had so many flavors of gelato! And they give you really big scoops there with a tiny cone on top!! My favorite flavor is lemon. There is also another place called Stairs that I loved.  THEY HAD BURRITOS THERE!! I got beef, tomato, guacamole, pepper burrito with a side of fries. It was nice to have something else other than Italian food. We also enjoyed sushi while we were in Naples. It is right on the coast so it has a lot of fresh fish. 

Besides the food, Naples was so fun because it had a lot of interesting and lively neighborhoods.  We went to one neighborhood with a famous street that has a lot of souvenirs and nativity scenes and other figurine scenes.  My favorite one was of a guy fishing and pulling out a fish from real water! There were so many different kinds and they were so fun to look at.  Most of them were doing different jobs like, making pasta, making tools, shearing sheep, brushing horses, making cheese, ironing clothes, picking apples, and making clothes.  The most famous ones are the Christmas Nativity scenes. We also rubbed the nose of Pulcinella for good luck. For some reason in Italy, you rub noses for good luck. I think I mentioned before about rubbing the boar’s nose in Florence.

One day, we went to a town called Sorrento.  We took a train for 2 hours to get there. I ordered pasta and it was so good!  I also made friends with a pony next to the restaurant. It’s name was Snowy. Then we walked down to the beach and went swimming.  After that we walked to catch a ferry. It was a cool ride. I liked to see the bottom of the boat cutting through the water. I was lucky enough to go into the cockpit with the captain and see all of the controls. 

Naples was so fun.  We loved Naples. But then it was time to leave for Rome for the second time because we had to catch our flight from Rome to Thailand!!  When we got to our Rome hotel (Monti Palace Hotel)  We went around Rome AGAIN and saw the Trevi Fountain, The Colosseum, The Spanish Steps, Roman Forum and The Vittoriano monument.  When we got home we went to the roof which had a restaurant on it. That night I fell asleep and was very excited for the next couple weeks- if you don’t count the fact that I have to take Malaria pills everyday also known as Malarone!