Round The World: Sorrento & Pompeii

World famous pizza

Everywhere I went in Italy I was warned not to stay in Naples, which was my original plan. I was told, however, that the city was dangerous (well, coming from Jo’burg I wasn’t too worried about that) and that the trash collectors were on strike at the moment (remind you of something?). But eventually I bowed to pressure and went to stay in Sorrento instead. Which, looking in hind-sight, I’m really glad I did.

Piano - a tiny town near Sorrento

I had a brief stop in Naples of an hour to try their world famous pizza. To get to the shop I had to walk through streets covered in trash and old clothes with people picking through the old clothes, lots of hawkers and a police presence on the streets arguing with some locals. At this point I was glad that I had put my big back-pack in storage as it felt like a rather dangerous place from the outset. I raced to the pizza shop where they had two choices, Margarita and Margarita without cheese. I was silly and chose the one without cheese. Hiking back through the interesting streets to the station with my pizza box I then wolfed down my famous pizza which seemed to have a lot of oil on it and rushed for the train. It wasn’t the best ever in my opinion – but maybe that was the lack of cheese.

Sorrento

To get to Sorrento you have to take the local train from Naples. The line is called some really long word which basically means circumventing Mt Vesuvius. The train was not the normal quiet trains you get across country, but a clatter wagon that looked rather well used and was full of graffiti (again). There were proper characters on board, from the tourists that poured out when we reached “Pompeii Scavi”, to the locals trying to pick up tourists to the lady I ended up chatting with who was from Rome and visiting a friend in Sorrento. She worked in the medical field and by the end of the conversation I had an offer for a bed when I came to Rome and had given her some tips on her visit to Cape Town next year.

The view from Sorrento pier

Sorrento is a tourist hub. It is really beautiful perched on the edge of a cliff with some gorgeous views of the town if you are prepared to walk along the main peer. My hostel was about 20 – 30 min walk from Sorrento but luckily only 10 min walk from the station. This was definitely a party hostel, with a night club on Saturday nights and a bar on the roof (which had a stunning view). Things seem more relaxed here and the local soccer league was playing a game until 1am on Sunday night just outside our window.

Tiny corner in Sorrento

Sorrento - check out that staircase winding up the hill!
I got a lot of exercise here.

Sorrento is a good place to base yourself for the Amalphi coast, to visit Positano and an island and Pompeii. Out of this list I ended up only going to Pompeii as I was completely exhausted by this stage in the trip. I discovered that I can’t go as fast as normal travellers on such a long trip.

First view of Pompeii

Going to Pompeii, I again teamed up with the girls in the dorm – about 7 of us this time. But as we went on I found that everyone was going a little slow, so Maryam and I ended up teaming up and touring together. We had a good chat while exploring the city.

The seven of us starting off. Maryam is
standing on the very right.

The city is beautiful, really amazingly preserved. Unfortunately, there were a number of houses that were closed off, but we still saw a lot. Paintings, some furniture, and architecture that was original / reconstructed.

One of the more intriguing things was how they constructed the streets. They had tall stones standing out of the streets which seem to have been stepping stones for people to cross the grimy streets without getting their feet dirty. Like a tall zebra crossing. In certain places, the chariot / wagon wheels could be seen as divots between the stepping stones.

Stepping stones

But tourists seem to come to Pompeii not only for the buildings, but to see the people that lived there. The bodies have been moved from the houses in Pompeii which everyone seemed disappointed in – however I was very grateful for this fact as you could then appreciate the beauty of the place without being haunted by people who were in pain. A couple of casts of bodies were being stored on shelves near the main square, in amidst pots and statues and other artefacts. It seemed a little callous just putting them on a shelf.

It seemed that everyone we bumped into or over-heard was on a mission to find the casts of the people who used to live in Pompeii – and not just the ones on the square. The trouble is that Pompeii is a bit of a maze and we didn’t have a map.

A cast of a body

The vineyards - still growing grapes for wine
in the middle of Pompeii

So, we followed a US army person who “went scouting” to find them and ended up in a vineyard amongst the vines which were all new green with spring and there, a glass house with a number of bodies in it, hidden from tourists eyes by the maze around it – we had the spot to ourselves. I have to say that it was a haunting sight. I don’t want to see it again in my life, but I’m glad I went. I have to question humanity when such a place becomes a tourist attraction. It felt as if I were intruding with my brightly coloured T-shirt, back-pack and camera.

Look to Mt Vesuvius

Pompeii was beautiful and disturbing. The half blown out form of Mt Vesuvius in the background made you constantly aware of the threat looming over this place. The fact that it is still an active volcano is quite something to consider too. When you see Vesuvius and it's crater you have to imagine the triangle on top to really get an appreciation of how drastic this disaster in history was.

Oh by the way, my free audio guide from the internet suggested that Pompeii had a population of 20 000 people. Only 2000 of which were in Pompeii on the day of the explosion, the rest had left due to the earthquakes and smoke comming from Vesuvius. This statistic made me feel a little better about the place. At least not everyone was killed.

Imagining the volcano as it was.

Maryam's belated Birthday dinner.

Limoncello

Later that night I went out with Maryam and two ladies from the US for a lovely cheap-so-you-can-buy-lots pasta and pizza evening with some red wine. A belated birthday dinner for Maryam.

Another hostel roof view

The roof was built around a church

View from the hostel roof

So my last day in Italy … and I spent it sleeping, reading, lying on the roof under an umbrella with a stunningly beautiful day around me. My only effort for the day was to wonder up to the shops to get lunch and ice-cream! Oh and at the end of the day when I bumped into a new traveller and we ended up going out for dinner in Sorrento – I had buffalo pasta with meat that had been marinating for hours. This was officially the best pasta I had in Italy. (Ok Rome was good too, but this was excellent!)

And that’s Italy – land of the loud people waving their hands, of pasta and pizza, of washing lines, houses on cliffs, mysterious ancient sights, people punting through canals with striped shirts, graffiti-ed trains and buildings and of course – the never to forget - Gelato ice-cream! Sigh, life will never be the same again.