Napoli and Pompeii

December 29-31, 2005

This is the last part of the story about the Italy trip after the first part in Toscana and the second part in Rome.
After a rainy morning in Rome, we drove to Napoli. The weather on the road was not getting better, even at some points we had snow. Entering Napoli, once again we were confronted with complex highways and only after several wrong directions we could find the correct way to the hotel in Castel Volturno, a village near the coast, about 45 minutes driving from Napoli. On the way there we drove via nice landscape of Napoli. The city of Napoli is located on a bay and it has hills surrounding the city. The highway was on the hills so we could see the whole city.

We arrived at the hotel around six in the evening. After a quick rest we went out for dinner. We asked to the receptionist at the hotel about the nice food, and we were suggested to go to Pozzuoli, a small town between Castel Volturno and Napoli. We went to a restaurant in the main road in Pozzuoli after we rounded the city hopelessly trying to find the harbour. The menu covers quite wide selection of pizzas and pastas, as well as seafood dishes. We ordered combination of pizza, pasta, and fish. The food was nice and we could see how the pizzas were made from the dough until finished from the oven. After dinner we went back to the hotel because it was raining the whole evening so we would not be able to enjoy anything in Pozzuoli.

In the following day, we spent most of the times in Pompeii. We started early in the morning and had our breakfast at a small cafe in Pompeii. After that we entered the famous historical ruined Roman city of Pompeii that buried under the ashes from the eruption of Vesuvius. We started from the west part of the complex, where the amphitheater is located. The amphitheater was used by Pink Floyd to film the Live at Pompeii.

Teatro Grande, Pompeii

We explored the area further, looking at what used to be houses and streets. There were also big buildings, such as the theaters, the gladiator barrack, the city square, and old temples. In the end we visited the Villa of Mysteries, one of the big villas in the area. It was a nice big building that used to be owned by upper class people in Roman time.

We went out from the excavation area around lunch time, and we had quick lunch in our way back to the car. And then we had to decide where to go next. The options were to visit the coast area of Amalfi or to climb the Vesuvius. We chose the Vesuvius, and there we went. Unfortunately we could not climb until very high because at a point the road was covered by snow and our car could not perform very well on snowy road. Finally we drove downhill, back to Napoli.

The Forum, Pompeii

That night we stayed in a hotel in the city of Napoli. It was raining for the whole evening, so we only went out to the main streets of Napoli and had a dinner. It was not a very nice city to visit actually, very crowded and very busy traffic.

And that was it. The following morning we took the train back to Rome to catch our flight back to Eindhoven.