A Short Trip to Pompeii and Napoli/Naples – Archeological Ruins and The Home Of Pizza

Everyone has heard of Pompeii and knows the story of Mount Vesuvius and the relatively instant burying of the city during the volcano's AD 79 eruption. Over 1,000 bodies were found by modern archeologists, buried by ash in the city, which have been preserved in plaster casts as seen in the picture above. These are the pop culture images of Pompeii that most people know, but they are just a small part of the Pompeii we experienced.

We took a train two hours south from Rome, stoping part way in Napoli (Naples and Napoli are the same thing, so I may refer to the City by either name) to switch trains before continuing our journey past the famous volcano, skirting the coast until we reached our destination in Pompeii. We did almost miss our train though as our bus to the station was greatly delayed. We were running through the train station and saw the train starting to pull away when a random man saw us running up and yelled at the conductor to open the door and let us on. Just in time, as we literally hopped on the train as it moved away from the station! It was an intense start to the trip. We were so lucky to have barely made it, or we would have been stuck for many hours waiting for the next train south.

We stayed two nights in the modern city of Pompeii at a great Airbnb a short walk to both the main train station and the archeological sight. On our walk over to see the ruins our first morning, we passed this old-timey restaurant and noticed this sign. Not sure if it was a strip/burger joint or what, but it seemed like an interesting spot. Sadly we may never know what that provocative sign meant as we did not venture back to explore.

We booked a tour ahead of time for Pompeii so we could get the full experience and not miss anything important in the park. The tour turned out to be an awesome experience and totally worth its premium price. Our tour was put on by "Tours of Pompeii with Lello", which are all guided by former archeologists or Pompeii researchers. This was the company:

I would highly recommend them if you are planning a trip to Pompeii!

Our guide was amazing. She was so knowledgeable and had so many fun insights into both the ancient and recent history of Pompeii. One of the highlights was when she led us to the large ancient amphitheater. Standing on a special stone in the prime auditory spot in the middle of the floor, she broke out into a wonderful opera song, so that we could get a sense of how perfect the sound was in the theatre. Even after a couple thousand years of being buried, the theater resonated spectacularly with her beautiful voice.

We were constantly amazed in Pompeii by how pristine the ruins were. It was truly like we were back in Roman times. The great technological developments of that time were preserved and in full display. This was a food and drink stand outside the theatre that would serve alcoholic beverages and snack foods.

The goods were kept warm in these terra-cotta vases set into nonconductive stones.

It was also great to see the colorful art that decorated the inside of homes and buildings that had been preserved by being buried under layers of ash.

I thought it was awesome since you normally see ruins in ruins, but in Pompeii you are seeing everything basically as it was 2000 years ago.

The details of the paintings were fantastic. Every house we went into had beautiful artwork all throughout the living areas. This was a piece showing a decapitated head. Odd choice for the living room.

Alena looking out over ancient Pompeii from on top of the yet to be excavated hill of ash that covers the remainder of the city. They have only excavated just over two-thirds of the ancient city so far.

Some picture perfect pillars at the basilica in Pompeii. It was cool to see the details on the buildings in Pompeii as most the this has been eroded from the famous sites in Rome.

Our guide also took us to the bath houses which had different rooms for different temperatures of water: cold, warm and hot. With terra-cotta piping and underground fireplaces to heat and transfer the water between pools and rooms, patrons were able to enjoys the baths exactly how they wanted. It is pretty amazing tech for back then. I feel like it's tough enough now days to keep a modern hot tub clean and in working order. They managed to have thriving bath houses with multiple, room-sized hot tubs that served hundreds of people.

There was a great exhibit at the exit of the park that most people sadly skip. It is a shame as the exhibitions were so cool and we learned a whole bunch more about the ancient city and interesting artifacts that were found in the ruins. We found this macabre exhibit of skulls found in the city from those who were struck down by the volcanic debris.

There was also a fun little exhibit on the various erotic amulets they found when excavating the city. The first one is a carving of a couple having sex while the second two are little penises that people would keep for good luck. We also noticed that there were many penises carved into buildings and on the ground in front of homes that were also a sign of good fortune for the occupants.

Pompeii far exceeded my already high expectations. The vastness of the city and incredible level of preservation due to its tragic demise was truly breathtaking. We had an amazing tour and were able to immerse ourselves in the rich history all around us. Pompeii is high on my list of places to return as we only saw about half of it. It is definitely somewhere I would recommend to any of you visiting Italy; make the trip down to Pompeii.

After a day of exploring the ruins we decided we wanted a relaxing beach day in Sorrento. While Sorrento is close to Pompeii as a crow flies, we found out it is a 2 hour trip each way via first a train to Naples then a ferry to Sorrento. This was not ideal for relaxing, but the pictures of the area looked so beautiful we decided we would give the marathon trip a go. Here I am waiting for the ferry to pull into port and take us to our own little piece of paradise.

After our long trip, we finally made it to Sorrento where we had the most amazing day just laying in the sun and swimming in the crystal clear, warm Mediterranean waters. In Sorrento, and much of Italy's coastline, you have to pay to use the beaches by renting a lounge chair or umbrella. It was totally worth the €10 chair rental and the adventure out there, as the fresh air and sea water was exactly what we needed after the self imposed hectic schedule we had been on. One does not tire quickly of chillin by the waves

On our last day in that region we booked a train ticket back to Rome in the late afternoon so we could spend part of the day exploring the regional capital of Naples. It is the third largest city in Italy but has somewhat of a poor reputation among travel guides and is commonly overlooked. Our hosts in Rome told us to ignore the bad hype and go wander the narrow streets and eat some tasty pizza in the city where it was invented. So in hopes of pretty pictures and delicious pizza we headed to Napoli to spend a few hours walking through the city.

Tracy and Jeff were so right telling us to visit Napoli. We had an amazing time seeing the old part of the city and people watching along the streets.

Alena snapped these awesome candid street shots below:

We walked down the main street of this old part of town and saw many of these little open air fresh fish shops.

All the buckets had live fish inside and some even had live octopus!

We made our way toward the far edge of this neighborhood where the world famous pizza spots are located. Each are known for amazing pizza, with photos with famous patrons on the walls and customers lined up outside ready to get their taste of Napoli. We headed for Sorbillo, where our Rome hosts claimed we could find the best pizza!

We got there 30 min before it opened and were 5th in line! Once seated, I was so excited for this renowned pizza experience. We ordered some bubbly drinks to help wash down the pizza feast we about to order.

We were so happy to finally get our pizzas! I got a special "Slow Food" pepperoni pizza and Alena ordered the 4 cheese pie. They were both so amazing and huge! They were crazy tasty and a crazy good deal as all the pizzas they served were surprising cheap (all under €9).

In Italy, when you order a whole pizza it doesn't come sliced, they leave it up to you to decide how big you want your pieces.

Alena with the "how did we eat all that?" look.

We were out walking off that huge pizza lunch we had and killing some time before our train when Alena stumbled upon this outrageously great photo opportunity. So much happening in this one.

As we continued walking around we saw this awesome looking barber shop. My hair was getting quite floppy so I popped in and asked the barber for a trim. He spoke almost no English but gave me one of the best haircuts I've ever had, especially for only €5.

While the barber was cutting my hair, 4 or 5 local people poked their head to say hello or chat up the guy for a few seconds before going on their way. It was neat to be a part of such an authentic local experience. Finally he pulled out a straight razor to finish up the sides before brushing me down. It was a super cool hair cut experience and felt very old fashioned. It was an amazing way to end our time in Naples and get fresh for the rest of our trip.

While I was getting trimmed up Alena went out to capture some final shots of Naples before we left to head north to see Florence and Pisa. Here are some more of Alena's fun photos!