Saturday was the first opportunity we had to travel and we took a trip to Pompeii as a whole group! There are 17 day camp counselors and then our Director, Audrey. I was not sure what to expect when we got to Pompeii, but I was very excited! We left fairly early and took the bus to downtown Naples where we caught the train and rode the train south to Pompeii. We had a little bite to eat when we got to Pompeii (I just had a yummy tuna sandwich) and then spent a number of hours wandering around the excavation of Pompeii. It was just so neat to see the details of this ancient city. Some of the really neat things that caught my eye were the casts of bodies from the volcano and there was an area with a lot of art that was painted on the buildings that is still intact! It was really neat!
It was a very warm and dusty day, but it was just incredible to think about the way the city once was and how they are utilizing it now. Then we wrapped up the trip to Pompeii with a wonderful Lemon Granita (very similar to frozen lemonade - yum!) This area south of Naples, towards Sorrento is known for their HUGE lemons and they are delicious!
On the way home from Pompeii the bus situation got a little tricky! We waited for the bus we wanted to take for about an hour in downtown Naples, it FINALLY came but was too full and did not let anyone on! So then we decided we would take the metro to a different part of town and try to catch a different bus - just as it began to POUR down rain! We were eventually able to catch the bus we wanted, but it probably took us about 3 hours to get home. It was a very eventful and exhausting day!
A little information about Pompeii:
Pompeii is a ruined and partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, its sister city, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning two days in 79 AD. The eruption buried Pompeii under 22 meters of ash and pumice, and it was lost for nearly 1,600 years before its accidental rediscovery around 1592. Since then, its excavation has provided an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a city at the height of the Roman Empire. Today, thisUNESCO World Heritage Site is one of the most popular tourist attractions of Italy, with approximately 2,500,000 visitors every year.
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