Ciao!
On Friday morning at 7am, about 30 other students from my program and myself boarded a tour bus and took off for a weekend trip to Pompeii, the island of Capri, and the Amalfi Coast. We drove for about 3 or 4 hours and arrived in Pompeii around 11am. There, we went on a guided tour of the ancient city of Pompeii. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting. I thought that Pompeii was a lot bodies of people that were preserved in the volcanic ash from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Actually, it is a town. Or more precisely, the ruins of a town. Some of the buildings are still in tact, like the brothel. That was one of the highlights of tour. We also visited the baths of Pompeii which had a sauna and a dressing room and then actual baths. We visited the ruins of a bakery that still had the oven in it. We saw a "rich person's" house with a large atrium and dining room and quarters for their slaves. Along the main road there was essentially a moat that ran through the center of the town that functioned as the sewer system with stepping stones across the middle of it so you could cross to the other side. There were a lot of stray dogs roaming around the town and sleeping inside the ruins.
After our tour we went to a nearby hotel and had a three course meal there for lunch. I would just like to say that a lot of people know me as a picky eater, but here in Italy, I eat a lot of strange things and I usually have no idea what I am about to eat and then end up eating it anyway. This meal we had some kind of pasta with some kind of sauce and vegetables. The second course was some kind of meat (tasted like pork chops) with some kind of gravy and then for dessert we had some kind of cake. Then we loaded back onto the buses and drove another 2 hours or so to the town of Sorrento.
Sorrento is on the coast and it is a pretty small town. There were a lot of tourists staying in it because it is only a ferry ride away from the island of Capri which is a very popular destination in the Mediterranean. We stayed at a really fancy hotel. For dinner on Friday and Saturday we had 4 course meals which were delicious. I know you all want to know what I had to eat. The meals have been a big part of my stay here so far, in case you can't tell. Friday night I had pasta with ham and peas and an alfredo cheese sauce. It might have been the best pasta I've had so far in Italy. For my main course I had pork and it actually came with french fries, no ketchup though. The dessert was tiramisu and it was by the far the best tiramisu I've had in Italy thus far. For dinner on Saturday night I had ricotta cheese ravioli with marinara sauce. For my meat course I had the Italian version of meatloaf, but it was not very good. For dessert I had a fig cake and turns out, I don't really like figs. But after I picked out the figs, it was pretty good. Then for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday morning there was a buffet with fruit and pastries and they had American breakfast foods like fried potatoes and omelettes and bacon and scrambled eggs.
On Saturday morning we woke up early again and took a ferry over to the island of Capri. It was very beautiful. I understand why so many people make the effort to visit it. It is actually very mountainous. We had to take a lift up over the top of one of the mountains to get to the other side of the island. The beach that we went to was rocks, not sand. My feet were a little too sensitive for it, but the water was a nice temperature and it was so unbelievably clear. I'm glad I can now say that I have swam in the Mediterranean Ocean. We also visited a perfume factory that makes its own fragrances for perfumes and soaps and lotions from flowers that are grown right there on the island. We took a little tour of the factory and had the opportunity to smell all of the different scents.
The next day we drove along all 52 kilometers of the Amalfi Coast on our way back to Rome from Sorrento. It had some of the most beautiful views of the coast I've ever seen. We would essentially be driving along the side of a huge mountain a look down below to see beaches. We stopped in the town of Amalfi and took a tour of a famous church, the Church of St. Andrew. I had lunch at a little restaurant there. I got a sandwich with tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. It was delicious. The towns along the Amalfi coast are famous for the lemons that grow in that region so limoncello and other lemon products are very popular in this area. In the afternoon we were supposed to make another stop and take a tour of the town of Ravello (?) but unfortunately, that very morning the town caught on fire and while we were driving along the coast we could look farther up the mountain and see the flames and smoke coming from the town that was burning. There were planes flying overhead back and forth from the ocean to the fire taking water up to try and put it out.
This weekend, if everything works out, I should be visiting Paris with my mom when she comes to visit. I will keep you updated. I posted pictures of this trip on facebook in the album entitled "Italia" if you want to check it out.
No comments:
Post a Comment