pompeii

Buona Notte!

Today was pretty awesome. We took a train from Naples 45 minutes to Pompeii and the base of Mount Vesuvius. We spent hours walking around the city of Pompeii. It was absolutely amazing. They had people that had been petrified by the volcanic ash on display as well as a dog that had been petrified as well. We saw houses, arches, the city park, the bathing house, and the amphitheater. On our audion tour guide it told about one house that had stables in it where a horse skeleton was found with a harness on it. The city was really amazing to see..so much of ancient Itailian, especially Roman, lifestyle has been preserved.

After touring Pompeii, we came back to Naples and ate at a local ristorante. We ordered spaghetti with a side of octopus salad. We ate octopus!! I thought the octopus salad was going to be a salad with some octopus. Nope. It was just cut up octopus tentacles.

After dinner we went further into the city on the train to the archeological museum. It was really fascinating. They had 2nd century statues and artifacts found at Pompeii.

We just got back to the hostel and are going to chill out for a while. Then we are going out for some pizza tonight!

naples

Our next stop is Naples. We were going to go to another town in Sicily called Siracusa, but the train was scheduled to leave too late in the day. So we decided to skip it and head straight to Naples. It was an overnight train, but we weren't able to get a bed. We "slept" in a coach that had six seats and four people. It was very uncomfortable. I would wake up every little while with a dead leg or tingling arm. We made it to Naples at 5 this morning. We found a hostle nearby and crashed. There is an LDS branch about 3 kilometers away that we were going to try to catch at 9:30. At 1 this afternoon we woke. I guess we weren't going to church.
We walked down the street and found a pizzeria to eat at. Naples is the place where pizza was invented....and the pizza here is amazing!! But the whole city is really dirty. There is garbage everywhere..all over the streets and sidewalks. Dumpsters are tipped over with garbage scattered everywhere. It is really gross. Tomorrow we will be going to Pompeii. It should be way fun!

italy trip. may 2011.

Jake and I have been backpacking around Italy for three days now. We left late Monday afternoon, took a train and went to Rimini, a cute town on the Mediteranian Sea. We got there late Monday night so we stayed in a hostel called 'Sunflower Getaway' or something hippy like that. The whole place was themed off of Austin Powers the Spy Who Shagged Me...yes, I got pictures.
On Tuesday we walked along the beach then took a bus to a country called San Marino. The whole country is basically a medevil castle. Really cool. We waked around the fortress for the rest of the day. That night we caught a night train to Messina, Sicily. It was close to 15 hour ride. The train had coaches with bunks in them. Ours had 4 beds total. Our two other riding companions were both guys, one of which would have won gold in the olypics for snoring. Once we got to Messina, we caught a 2 hour train to Paleremo. We got there later yesterday afternoon, so all we had time for was wondering around...which led us inside a really old catholic cathedral, which was still being used for worship. We also ate at a real Italian restaurant for the first time! It was really good. Neither of us could read what was on the menu, so we asked the lady what was good. Jake ended up with spaghetti with bacon in it. It was really good...tasted similar to Mac and cheese. I got spaghetti with shrimp, roasted tomatoes, and clams in it.
Today we spent most of the day in Palermo. It was really cool. We went to a cathedral that had gold everywhere, and murals, and was really old. We also went to the catacombe del cupacini, also known as the catacombs of the cupichans. Hundreds of skeletons that are amazingly preserved. There is one in there named the bambina (little girl) who was so well preserved that it looked like she was lying there asleep...all her hair was there and skin..everything. It was really amazing.
We then took a train to Agrigento, Sicily. We found a cute little hostel for the night owned by this really old lady who doesn't speak a lick of anything that is not Italiano. Tomorrow we will be sight seeing all of Agrigento and then catch a train to our next stop..wherever that may be. The famous spot in Agrigento is the Valle Dei Templi, which means the Valley of the Temples. There are four temples that are still standing today located within a mile. There are also tons of ruins, including the ruins of the great Temple of Zues