Continuing in our good fortune at finding fellow countrymen abroad, Brianne ran into two young guys from Brampton purchasing their tickets to Pompeii. We joined them and an American couple currently based in Germany for a trek into the historic ruins in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. One of the Canuck lads had a passionate enthusiasm for Pompeii and offered to be our guide for the day. As it turned out, enthusiasm does not always equal factual accuracy; he was positive the mountain dominating the landscape was too close to be the real Vesuvius, we completely passed by the House of the Faun that he was looking for because the characterestic statue denoting it wasn't as large as he expected it to be from the pictures he'd seen, and the preserved counters with holes in them (see below) were described by him as "public toilets," rather than being -- as we learned from a guidebook afterwards -- "food pots." Doesn't matter, though, he was a terrific guy and we all had a great time.
The ruins of Pompeii are expansive; you're told it's a "city," of course, but the reality of the size doesn't really hit you until you're exploring it. We wandered in and out of dwellings, checked out the amphitheatre, and marvelled at mosaics and frescoes. Our admittedly morbid group goal, however, was to make sure we "saw some dead people." We were searching for the casts of the remains of those who had not escaped the wrath of the volcano. We found them towards the end of our days, and they are eerily fascinating.
One site within the city that was very popular was the brothel. Seriously, people were lined up outside, it was hilarious, but of course we were there too. Within the recently excavated and restored edifice were separate rooms with stone beds in them, and over the doors to each room were frescoes which quite clearly depicted . . . shall we say, "menu options?" What happens in Pompeii, stays in Pompeii. Following our long and dusty exploration of the ruins, we enjoyed the company of our North American friends over some delectable local pizza.The next day we made our way down to the docks to hop a ferry out to the Isle of Capri. We had read amazing things in the Lonely Planet guide about the beauty of the island, particularly of The Blue Cove, a grotto accessible only by row boat with hauntingly blue water due to light refraction and white sand. We opted for a motor boat tour of around the entire island shore, with the Cove at the end. The tour was well worth it, showing the beauty of the craggy mountain cliffs and mirrored water and inlet grottoes, all the while inspiring the theme from Jurassic Park to run through our heads.
Once we made it to the Blue Cove, however, we realized it was a complete rip-off. They charge you for the row boat into the cave PLUS cave entry, you're only in there for about 4 minutes, you can barely take a recognizable picture (see below), and all the while your row boat captain is belting out bad opera in the echoing darkness trying to drum up a tip! Sheesh! Well, live and learn.
After regaining our land legs, we ventured up to the main town of the island. Ventured? More like "scaled." It was a 25 minute uphill walk to Capri Town. Along the way we kept passing people on their way down who so compassionately assured us that we were LESS than half-way there. Still, we met a couple of gals from Chicago with whom we completed our climb, took in the admittedly astounding views from the summit, and had a little lunch. Capri Town is packed to the gills with high-end retailers (Gucci, Cartier, etc) and five-star hotels, so there was a lot of just window shopping on our part. We made our way back down and indulged in some gelato which was thoroughly earned, then said goodbye to our Chicago gals, hung out on very rocky beach for a little while and took the ferry back to Napoli.One thing that made us both laugh: when walking back to our hostel, we saw in the window of a McDonalds a picture on the menu for a grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich entitled "McToast."
No comments:
Post a Comment