Europe Winter Trip (Part 5 - Naples, Pompeii)

Day 11

We took one of the earliest buses from our "camping" ground to Roma Termini, bought some McDonald's breakfast and took the train to Napoli (or Naples in English, Neapel in German). After reaching Naples we had to take a local Circumvesuviana train to Pompeii.

The entrance to Pompeii is very near the train staion Pompeii Scavi (Scavi means excavation site). There we no audio guides left... someone returned some audioguides but we would have to wait 10 minutes for it to recharge. After getting the booklet guide I figured we don't get the audio guide because we'd have to pay for it and we didn't really have much time.

Mount Vesuvius from afar. It's still an active volcano.

Pompeii was a wealthy Roman city until the flames and lava of Mount Vesuvius engulfed it and many of its people. However, many of the buildings, statues and even drawings on the wall have thus been preserved, so we have a clearer detail of how life was like in those times.

I think I'll just put up some photos with brief descriptions:

Temple of Apollo, with a statue of Apollo in the foreground.

Entrance to the Building of Eumachia, possibly a wool market in the past.

As with the SI system we use nowadays, the romans had their own set of standard measures, as can be seen in this photo.

If I'm not mistaken, this was one of the rooms in a bathhouse.

There were many "stalls" around looking like the above, where snacks and other food was made and sold.

This mosaic of a dog is located on the floor at the entrance of the House of the Tragic Poet. The words at the bottom are "CAVE CANEM", meaning "beware of the dog".

House of the Vettii (wealthy freedmen). This painting at the entrance depicts Priapus, god of fertility, resting his enormous d*** on the plate of a scale, which is counterweighted by a bag of money.

Painting at the Lupanare, the brothel.

The Amphitheater, able to hold over 20,000 spectators (!)

After 4 hours or so (it was a large place!) we still haven't seen everything but we had to catch our train back to Naples. In Naples we merely wanted to look for one of the recommended places for Pizza (Naples is the birthplace of Pizza). We ended up at Di Matteo. The pizzas are really big, but mine was rather burnt. It was really fantastic. I felt that the pizza I had in Pisa was better. Maybe I should've gone to Sorbillo's like what Kelda suggested. Oh well, next time then.

The pizzas were larger than the plates they were served on.

We then caught a train back to Rome.

Other Stuff:

I forgot to mention, the Roma Termini is one of the very few stations that looks modern and clean. Many other stations we've been to are worse. Oh well, I'm talking from a Singaporean cleanliness standard viewpoint of course.

I've also forgot to mention, that quite a lot of people smoke in Italy. As I still had a sore throat when I arrived in Milan, it was quite bad.

Saw quite a number of palm trees as we travelled. Didn't know that the weather was suitable. But the weather was rather nice and warm... at least better than in Munich.

Naples was really like Malaysia (Bernard thought he was in JB). When I first walked its streets it felt as if I were in a developing country instead of a developed one. So I guess Malaysia can be a developed country in 2020 after all [cynicism]. It was rather dirty, there was litter everywhere, and the traffic was horrible. No one bothers about traffic rules... Thank goodness I had prior training in Malaysia!