Sorrento / Naples / the end of our trip!

10/23 - Arriving in Sorrento

The afternoon that we arrived in Sorrento, Ariel had a bit of homework to wrap up. I spent some time writing up our Rome blog posts, and then we headed out to walk around a bit before dinner. As we were heading out, we took a quick pit stop in the hotel bar for some pre-dinner drinks. The bar was attached to a huge, gorgeous terrace that overlooked both the ocean and Vesuvius in the distance - we ended up returning the next day too, because it was just such a great spot. We stopped in to a few stores we had seen on the walk to the hotel on the way to the restaurant we had made reservations at. “Donna Sofia Cafe” was a great spot! The food was very tasty, with lots of fresh seafood. We continued our night with a wander around Sorrento and found one big main thoroughfare to stroll down, lined with shops and restaurants. Once we had gotten a bit of a feel for the city, we headed back to the hotel before our big Pompeii day.

10/24 - Pompeii all day!

With Sorrento as our home base, we had great access to Pompeii. After a relatively painless train trip over we stopped just outside the site for a quick coffee. While we waited, a group of local students asked Ariel to do an interview for one of their class projects. The questions were mostly focused around different foods from different regions, and after interviewing Ariel we saw them continuing to ask other tourists around the Pompeii entrance similar questions as well. After Ariel’s sixty seconds of fame were up, we had our tour of Pompeii. The guide we walked around with was an archaeology PhD, which made for a lot of great context and information along the way. We saw all the most famous spots in the city, as well as a ton of cats wandering around the ruins. After the tour wrapped up (which was only a few hours) we stopped in to the on-site stores for a snack before we continued. Yet again, lots of cats. There were two up on the terrace overlooking the ruins where the stores were, wandering back and forth looking for dropped bits of food and treats from other tourists.

In the early afternoon, we explored Pompeii a bit more on our own. The best site we found within the ruins was probably the one collection of buildings that were being actively excavated. There was a set of catwalks up over the site with archaeologists working below, and we were able to walk around and see some of the most recent work (although we weren’t allowed to take any photos). This was really cool - there were a few frescoes, freshly dug out, as well as active restoration work being done on some doors, arches and walls.

We made our way back to Sorrento, and recharged with a quick breather at the hotel and another round of drinks on the patio. Our big splurge dinner was this night, and we had pre-booked at a place called “il Buco” with a Michelin star. We ended up opting for a lighter tasting menu, which was quite good. I’ve never done a Michelin star dinner before (although I have done some tasting menus) and they were definitely trying to do some pretty fancy stuff. One dish was served in a large ceramic egg, which the wait staff revealed to have been filled with smoke when they opened them up. All in all, it was a really great meal, and a fantastic way to wrap up our stint in Sorrento.

10/25 - Naples, in a super-brief visit

To try and make our trip home as painless as possible, we had planned our trip to end with one night in Naples (where we would be flying out of). We also found quite a few things we wanted to try and do in Naples while we could, so we decided to try and make a pretty early train out of Sorrento. The hotel had a great little included breakfast, and were able to get us a taxi so we didn’t have to drag our bags back up the hill to the train station. After another hour of bumpy train travel (although we at least found seats this time) we arrived in Naples and nabbed a taxi to our hotel. For just one night, it was a really great spot - we were staying in a converted apartment inside of and overlooking the Galleria Umberto. This hotel was yet another spot that, if we had infinite time, we would’ve loved to stay for longer! After we got in to the hotel, we started off on our Naples to-do list. Primarily we were hoping to make it to the Archaeological Museum, to see much of what had been unearthed at Pompeii in the past and moved to Naples, and to eat lots of pizza. We started ticking items off of our list by stopping around the corner at a pizzeria. The menu had one item on it - margarita pizza. The pizza was huge, wider than my shoulders, and delicious.

A quick metro ride later, and we were right outside the museum. With Rick Steves yet again guiding our tour, we walked through and got to see an immense number of frescoes, sculptures, and mosaics, many of which had been found at Pompeii. The sculptures here in particular were impressive - the main highlights were larger-than-life marble versions of Heracles, and many other Roman gods and emperors. All the mosaic work was also incredible. The amount of detail that they managed to pack in with just shards of colored stone is unbelievable. After the museum, we did a quick wander around the absolutely buzzing streets of Naples. The fact that it’s one of the densest cities in Europe definitely shone as we were walking around. We strolled through a street market, multiple roads buzzing with mopeds, and much taller buildings than we were used to seeing the rest of our trip. After exploring a bit, we made our way back to the metro to head to Castle Nuovo near our hotel. The massive castle overlooked the entire port of Naples, and had some early Christian artwork in a small museum. From above, the chaos of all the city streets was even more apparent - as was the port, which had at least a half dozen cruise ships anchored right next to the city. After a few photos and panoramic photos from the top of the ramparts, we made our way back to the hotel to refresh ourselves before heading out for dinner.

Looking once again for pizza, we made our way back towards a smaller residential area near the Galleria Umberto. After finding a place, we sat down right off of a primarily pedestrian road that nonetheless was humming with mopeds and motorcycles. Every ten seconds another one would zip by, oftentimes with an entire family of three on them. The pizza was once again delicious, but seeing as we had a 3:30AM wake-up time for our early morning flight, we weren’t able to stay out too late in Naples. Definitely another place that we’d go back to in the future!

10/26

Although this was a very long day, there really isn’t much of it that’s story-worthy. We got up early for our early morning flight, caught a taxi to the airport, and then settled in for a 26 hour long travel day. With very few snafus along the way, we did our best to stay fed and hydrated as we stopped first in Frankfurt, then in Los Angeles, and finally made it home to Bend.

It’s so hard to sum up a trip like this! We felt simultaneously like we had seen an incredible amount of Italy and spent so long there, while also feeling like we had barely scratched the surface. We could’ve spent three times as long in each spot we stopped in, and still had more to see. I guess that means we’ll have to go back in the future - maybe on my next Sabbatical! Until we have that chance again, we are so glad we got to spend such a great chunk of time exploring Italy. I can’t think of a better way to have spent this break from work (and partial break from school).

Final statlines:

Most steps per day: 23,455 (Jarod) / 28,029 (Ariel), on our second full day in Rome

Spritzes drunk: 16

Espresso shots consumed: 52

Gelato scoops: 16

Liters of wine drunk: 8

Cats seen: 12