Today was my favorite day so far. We were up at six to catch the 7.30 high speed train south to Naples and then a commuter train on to Pompeii. The train ride down provided a look at parts of Italy I'm not sure we'd see otherwise. Besides seeing a few vineyards, a lot of olive orchards, marble quarries, snow covered mountains and rolling hills with a castle here and there perched on top, we also saw garbage dumps with people living in the midst of them in little camper trailers, many abandonded and/or delapitated old farm buildings, and a lot of greenhouses. The countryside wasn't nearly what I thought it would be and I'm sure it's prettier in the spring and summer. I think all the movies of Italy use the Tuscan countryside, which is north of Rome, as south of Rome is quite the everyday ordinary, working man's place, not the backdrop for anything Hollywood would want to film.Naples itself has an incredibly different feel than Rome, which we discovered later today after we returned from our trip to Pompeii. Traveling to Pompeii was a dream come true for Kaleb as he has read a lot about that place also and couldn't imagine it in his mind. Walking around there for four hours and only scratching the surface of what was there, helped him absorb some of the enormity of it all. It was a town built many centuries before Jesus walked the earth and in 79AD it was covered in ash and hot lava by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, just five miles away. Some areas of the town had 16 feet of ash, so life was perfectly preserved there when around 2,000 people lost their lives that fateful day. The town originally had over 20,000 people and I was surprised by how massive the place was - 164 acres of land and every bit of it impressive. About 75% of it has been uncovered, which says something about the amount of work there has been done since the town started being excavated in the mid 1700s. For over 300 years it's been a work-in-progress and to even think the whole thing has been dug out is mind boggling. There are houses upon houses, all next to each other, laid out in a most methodical way with the central government houses on one end, a colosseum on the other, bath houses and temples sprinkled throughout and businesses lining the streets. All that's missing are the roofs, as most of the walls and interior things like the baker's ovens are still intact. The amount of "loot" discovered in that place filled the gigantic archeological museum in Naples. Things like gold coins, metal pitchers, glass vases, statues, and the most impressive mosaics I've ever seen. Even sections of walls with murals painted on them were in tact and some are still in Pompeii on their original structure. The streets are all lined with rock that still have the chariot wheel wear marks on them, like places we've seen on the Oregon trail. The part that fascinated Kaleb was that the streets are lower than the sidewalks because a few times a day they "flushed" the streets, since all the town's water and sewer would end up there. At all major cross roads, there are boulders high enough to step across so one could cross the street without stepping in the gush of water washing things out to sea (see photo of Kaleb crossing the street). It was all quite sophisticated. Kaleb and I lost Kory somewhere in the maze of the city but thanks to our cell phones we met up in the Colosseum and had a little snack in the blazing sun (Rome had rain today but not Naples/Pompeii).
We took the commuter train back to Naples, went to the museum for about 90 minutes to see all the best treasures found at Pompeii, including a scale model of the place that was made in the 1800s and then we walked around town. We took a wrong turn, which landed us in the middle of a working class neighborhood that reminded me of what New York city might have been like 60 years ago - small little businesses along the street fronts, each selling their speciality. One sold meats and cheeses, another pasta, a baker, a fruit stand, a place to buy paper products and cleaning solutions, a toy store, a small grocer with candies that caught Kaleb's eye. The people couldn't have been nicer and even though Naples has the highest crime rate in Italy, and is the birthplace of the Mafia (and pizza), we felt perfectly safe (unless we were trying to cross the street). We finally corrected our course and headed down toward the water (but never quite made it all the way to the beach). We dodged mopeds on the sidewalk, listened to people yelling at each other, street vendors hawking their wares, cars honking and be-bopping around pedistrains trying to cross the street. There was an amazing energy there as the streets are so incredbily narrow and the buildings several stories high. I'm sure the sun has never reached down to the streets below for all the laundry hanging out the windows from the apartments above. It's definately a city with character, even more so than Rome. I felt like we were perhaps the only tourists there, opposed to Rome, where it feels like it's mostly tourists. I liked Naples, but I wouldn't want to live there.
We ate pizza for dinner at a place that's been making pizza for over 125 years and their menu hasn't changed in all that time. Pizza with tomato sauce and no cheese; sauce with a little cheese; or sauce with double cheese. That's it. And the only thing in the sauce besides tomatoes was a small piece of fresh basil somewhere in the center of the pizza. The mozzarella cheese was set in globs all over the pizza, not grated, like we serve. The pizza crust looked burned and actually, not very appetizing, but it couldn't have tasted better. Pizza here is never cut in pie shaped pieces, because it's eaten with a knife and fork. For five bucks at that place it's possible to order a 14" pizza and a beer. We ordered two. The place was full of locals and had the ambiance of a cafeteria with a bunch of old guys walking around taking orders and delivering the pizzas. There was some Godfather looking character sitting at the register taking in the money. What a place. The locals were lined up to get in there and because the menu is so limited, service is almost immediate since the pizzas are always in the works. People walk in, eat, and within about 15 minutes walk out again. Fast food at it's best.
Our train home from Naples was delayed by 50 minutes so Kaleb was pretty tired by 8:30 when it finally arrived and he fell asleep on the way home. We are all exhausted from all the walking, my feet are crying out for a massage or hot soak but I know we'll all sleep good tonight. What a day.
