Stranded in Sorrento: June 27th, 2014

It seems pretty clear that tour guides can be problematic and often not the bang you were hoping to get for your buck. SO my parents and the other’s of the families we are on this cruise with decided we should take a break for a day and instead of waking up early for the tour like the rest of the people on this cruise, we should just explore ourselves and wing it. Didn’t exactly work out the way we had hoped.

We were SUPPOSED to go visit Pompei (in Naples) AND the Amalfi Coast which is this gorgeous strip thats composed of beautiful tiny, colorful houses all dangling from this cliff off of a glimmering sea that extends very far. Sounds beautiful, right? Well we found ourselves running to buy tickets to the train to Pompei which was to leave in 3 minutes and somehow someway all 18 of us got on: the Angels, the Bobbitts, the Levitts, and the Gelbards. Good thing too because the next train would have been in an hour and 30 minutes. So we take that to Pompei and explore the remains of the ruined city. Located in the Province of Salerno, it was founded in 1891 and was DESTROYED. How you might ask? If you don’t know there is a song from Bastille called Pompei and a movie coming out, so this will explain it if you aren’t familiar. Researchers believe that Pomei was founded in the 7th or 6th century BC and was destroyed 160 years later when its population was about 20,000 due to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius which is 8km away from the city. So apparently some were killed from the rock and pumice spewed from the eruption and most died inside buildings due to the roofs and floors collapsing from the weight of the ash and from seismic tremors. We got to see a sculpture of a dog covered in the ash frozen in time curled up in a ball, and I am pretty sure it was real. We even saw a person and their body was in a laying down position as if the person was trying to protect themselves. It was a very cool experience and I now understand why in the song it says, “and the walls kept tumbling down in the city that we love. Great clouds roll over the hills bringing darkness from above”. Afterwards we took cars to Sorrento and found lunch. This was after we had been walking around randomly for about 20 minutes not really sure what to do or where to go. I shared an arrabiatta pasta with Nicole (Levitt) which was absolutely delicious and from there our families just wandered about wondering what exactly we were supposed to do. Not enough time to go down to the Amalfi Coast, yet not enough willingness to let it go. As Nancy said, my mom pointed at where we were currently on a map and then at where we were SUPPOSED to be to board the ship (in complete opposite areas).Unfortunately we didn’t get to actually go down and see it which sucks (personally it probably would’ve been a bit cooler than Pompei). LUCKILY on our bus ride back to the boat our awesome bus driver (who everyone was calling Bradley Cooper but the Italian version) parked illegally on the wrong side of the road to allow us to get off quickly and take gorgeous pictures from way up on the cliff, getting this mind-blowing panoramic view of the gorgeous coast. It was stunning to say the least. Then we headed back to the boat! Oh but that was complicated to, considering our bus driver drove into the wrong area and they wouldn’t let us board so we walked through this giant maze of stacks of aluminum. Then the italian police started blowing their whistles at us so pretty much telling us we could get arrested for what we were doing, even though we had just been told to go this way. Eventually, we got back in the boat! The last night at the cruise consisted of one last gorging down of every free expensive meal we could get at dinner (aka the entire menu ordered for each person individually) and a bunch of fun to wrap up our last night with all of our friends followed by sad goodbyes at the elevator at 3am in the morning. My parents say I write WAY TOO MUCH per post and that I probably lose my readers a quarter way through but for posts like these, I DONT REALLY CARE. Personally I like getting detailed because it helps me train my memory and its really for me to remember my experiences anyways, and if you like to read it as well then you can stop wherever you please! Good job if you got this far.

~xoxo Ali!

is it spelled Pompei or Pompeii? So confusing!Will at Pompei

a dog from the time of Pompei

person during the time of Pompei

 

 

 

don’t even know ^

new holiday card? just kidding that would be embarrassing

only Scott Bobbitt would drink from this old moss filled water fountain that the people of the time probably used to bathe themselves in…

looking out the window of the train headed to Sorrento

the best arrabiatta pasta I’ve EVER had

selfie on the bus

 

gorgeous view of the Amalfi Coast

I went all out for a little sweet snack after I realized it would be my last time to enjoy the buffet. I freaked out. There was a chocolate fountain AND a vanilla fountain!! And those are fruit cream pastries :)

and if that wasn’t enough I had to of course get an ice-cream afterwards as well :)

^^selfies before ‘cuzzi

Me Nathalie and Susannah