Pompeii

Rebecca and I had both agreed that, given the opportunity in Naples, we wanted to head to Pompeii and check out the ruins. Lucky enough for us the opportunity arose on Thursday as Cathy had to run errands and we were left to explore as we wished. We left early-ish to catch 1 of our 3 trains to reach the ancient city. The subway in Naples exists I think only so people can say that Naples has a subway. The first train we took can only be described as a shit-box with wheels, graffiti everywhere, and dirty. I hadn’t ever been able to fully understand why the North looked down on the South of Italy before this trip. The North is clean, hard working, and full of refined people while the South is the opposite, with much higher crime rates. We eventually made it to the central station after having the train break down mid journey and after a mix up with cash and having to find a bank in downtown Naples which is currently torn up due to construction. We eventually found a bank machine, bought our tickets and made it to Pompeii, missing out on running into a friend by only a couple minutes which was a little disappointing, but life’s full of small disappointments.

We spent about 4 hours, if not more, in the ancient city beginning at the main gate, walking all along the out skirts of the town, through the arena, coliseum and Roman palace and then along the outer most wall on the opposite side. It is truly remarkable that the city has been preserved as it is currently. The most shocking things you see are not the old ruins but the bodies. The people forever preserved in the agony they felt in the moment they died.

We toured the amphitheatre and along the far outer walls which were really neat. After that length of time and with a 2 hour train ride home we called it a day.

When we returned to the apartment, one of Cathy’s sons, Ben, had returned from hiking in Austria with his girlfriend. Ben, Rebecca, Ron and I ate a delicious vegetarian fried rice, prepared by Ron. After dinner Ben took us up to the roof of the apartment and the three of us sat and talked giving Ben and I the chance to catch up.