Europe 2nd Trip - Pompeii, Italy (Day 3)

27th Oct 2013, Sunday, Cloudy

Rooftop Garden

Today we are going to visit the city of Pompeii, had to give up hiking Mount Vesuvius cos both of my friends were tired from yesterday's walking. So we woke up at 5 or 6 am plus, then prepared for breakfast. Ooo...the breakfast area was on a rooftop garden, it was so cooling to have breakfast there and can see the blue blue sky. They even have a small area for table tennis. The croissants were great too and there was a cute triangular pantry that we all love it when we had it the first time. I tried the yogurt too, it was apricot flavor. I love the red orange juice too, it was in red color..different from the normal orange color. It was nice!! And the ham was nice to go with the bread.

Metro Tickets

After we had the wonderful breakfast, we made our way out to Pompeii. We had to buy our metro tickets from the ticket machine, which was 'hiding' in a corner. It's a ticket for 90 mins, and gosh, the metro was damn slow..We took like almost an hour just to reach the main train station to take the circumvesuviana train. By the time we reached there and got our tickets, it was like 10 plus to 11 am. There were a lot of people taking the train too, we made our way down to the platform to catch our train. We had to wait for another 15 mins or so for our train. Finally, our train arrived and we all boarded, it was packed with people. There was no available seats, so we stood near to the door. Luckily, there were some seats empty after a few stations, we were able to sit down (legs tired from all the standing...hohoho). Along the way, was able to see Mount Vesuvius, it was so beautiful. After the long ride, we finally reached the station of Pompeii. There was a tourist guide counter just in front of the station and the staff were trying to get people to buy their tickets for their guided walk. We just went in straight to the main counter (which was at the entrance of the city) and got our tickets.

Steep road to enter the city

Here is a brief introduction on Pompeii:
Pompeii was an ancient Roman city that was once prosperous during its time. There were gladiators fighting in the theater and the people were still using horse chariots. But all these were gone after the city was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Now what is left are the ruins that you can see in the visit and try to understand how the people had lived at that time.

When you first passed the entrance, there was this very steep road that you need to walk up to enter the main city (which is the city gate). One of my friends went on her own, listening to the audio guide (which we downloaded from Rick Steve) whereas mi and another friend, we went in walking with the guide taken from the book. The road of the city were all built with big stones (basically, you can see 1 stone and 1 stone as the road, not like our normal road that were built with tar). I had to jump from stone to stone to walk around...hohoho...One of my friends had a fall when we were walking up to enter the city (hurt her ankle but luckily, it wasn't too serious...). Anyway, she continued on her walk, and mi and my another friend continued ours. The road really wasn't easy to walk around, had to jump from rock to rock. The city was super big and amazing....we tried to follow the self guided tour and went and see those highlighted sites. And there was this 3 bigger and higher stones on the road, they were used to let pedestrians to walk around the streets when the streets were filled with water (used for washing the streets). As we walked further in, there was a big main square, where the temple of Jupiter and the city hall stood. Then we went to see the Basilica and the fish and produce market. Inside the fish & produce market, there was a display of plastic molds of Pompeiians who were caught in the disaster. Behind the molds display, was a wall of pictures that was kept preserved. We walked abit further in the market, there was display of actual mummies of the Pompeiians. 

Stoves made of marbles (Fast Food Joint)

After some time, mi and my friend just got tired and hungry. We bought a slice of pizza and ate before we continued our journey again. I saw my friend when we were just continued walking, i asked my friend, "Isn't that person look familiar?"...hohoho....
Next, we continued walking down the streets and saw the fast food joint, where we can see the stoves made out of marble. Then we just continued walking and we ended up on a stairs that lead us to a higher ground that we had a high view of the city of Pompeii. We took some photos there and headed back down to the city again. We ended up at the House of Tragic Poet. Next, we walked till the House of the Faun, this house was the biggest house in the whole city of Pompeii. But 1 side of the house was closed off, there was a big complete picture (which was showing the battle of Alexandra, the original is currently displayed in the National Archeological Museum) on the floor at the courtyard. Then we continued walking on the streets again, we ended up at the theater, which we caught with our friend. We took a moment to sit around at the theater, i climbed all the way up to the top. And from there, you can actually see Mount Vesuvius at the left side. Too bad, it was too cloudy, the clouds were covering the volcano..not able to take a clear shot of it.

Seafood Pasta

Then we left to see the biggest house again (as my friend had not seen it), mi and the other friend tried to find the 2000 years old lead pipes. It was caged at one of back alley, it wasn't very noticeable. But it was definitely old lead pipes..hohohoho....Then my friend brought us to the public bath, the entrance was very dark, as it was getting dark. We went in and take a look, it was dark inside, with no much light. And there was a black dog sleeping inside too, can't even see it. The bath was further inside, it was soooo big. By the time we finished walking, it was already 5 plus and the sun had already set, it was getting dark.So we made our way back to Naples train station. The train back to Naples was also packed with people and while we were on the train, there was a group of teenagers, shouting around the train and were very anxious. Later, we saw some of them were running out the 1st station and some of them were running in to the train. There was like a big commotion but they were all speaking in Italian...don't understand, so got no idea what was happening. When the train reached to the 2nd or 3rd station, we saw the teenagers ran out of the train and some were suddenly got caught by police, who were waiting at the station and they were in full amour. Hahhaa...one of the teenagers was still sitting beside my friend, she kept joked that she seated side by side with a criminal (Forget whether is the one seated beside got caught by the police...hahhaa...). After this commotion, we just waited for our train to reach Naples train station...like long journey back...Then we headed down to a restaurant nearby Naples train station area to have our dinner. The restaurant name is called
La Cantina dei Mille. We had a pizza and pasta (my friend ordered another pasta too cos they were too hungry), free bread were given too..but the bread was hard as rock...hahhaa..my friend knocked the bread on the table, and it sounded like taking a stone and knocking on the table...so funny...

I don't find the food bad, it's just salty for me to accept (the seafood was fresh and the prawns really smell nice). Anyway, i ate a little and as we were paying, the boss gave us his namecard and wanted us to give feedback on tripadvisor...kekeke.....Then we made our way back to hotel. The metro really cannot make it, we had to wait and wait for it to come.
Finally, we reached our hotel and we can rest for the day...yeah!! (Too bad, didn't even have time to shop around the streets near our hotel, there is a Disney store there too...)

Hotel Stayed:
Hotel Tolendo

Places Visited:
Pompeii