Our clothes dryer
Similar to most of our mornings, we opted to take it slow, watching America’s Got Talent and sticking around long enough for a light lunch of leftover pizza before heading out to explore for the day.
We walked to the train station past a church where they were laying out flower petal mosaics. I asked and found out that it was a special church holiday where there would be a procession later in the evening.
We hopped on the train to backtrack to the Pompeii Scavi train stop. The first Sunday of the month in Italy, all museums and parks were free. Kids under the age of 18 were free normally, so we saved on two adult entrance fees. Every little bit counts.
Going to Pompeii was a bucket list item for me. I learned about Pompeii in elementary school and was enthralled with it. I always wanted to visit; there was the debate up to the last minute however between Pompeii and Ercalano (Herculaneum). I finally opted for Pompeii since it was on my bucket list; we thought we were set for the day as we hopped off the train only to find out that the site was closed until 2:30 pm. There was nothing online to let us know that the site closed for a couple of hours, so we just had to wait about 40 minutes. We had read that we would have to check our back packs, but we wore them in and were not asked to check them. And even though the entrance fee was waived, we still had to stand in line for a ticket. Chris stood in line while the girls and I moved off to the side to stay out of the mix.
And then we walked in to Pompeii and it was awesome. Even Chris, who was a little skeptical and came because I wanted to, was impressed. The site was crowded but not too bad. I was still able to get some people-free pictures. Since it was Sunday, there were a few tour groups in Pompeii but no school groups.
Chris and the girls stopped for ice cream at the cafe, we filled up water bottles at spigots throughout Pompeii, and stopped a time or two for bathroom stops.
We toured the men’s and women’s ancient baths, the basilica, some houses, the colosseum, and the theater, the forum, public toilets, restaurants, bars, and inns.
The Colosseum
The lockers in the men's baths
Grinding stones from a bakery
Floor mosaics were intricately made with fingernail size pieces of stone
Stepping Stones that allowed clean passage from one side of the street to the other to keep clean. The streets were regularly flooded to wash away all of the garbage. Ruts were often created in the roads to help wagons and chariots more easily navigate the "paved" roads.
We found Waldo at Pompeii!
We spent four hours wandering through the streets of Pompeii. I topped off the day taking some senior photos of Misha.
On our way home, our return trip took us past Sant’Agnello to explore Sorrento and to find some dinner. We were on a non A/C train and glad for the evening breeze, AND we got seats after awhile. Sorrento was a beautiful tourist town. Made me wish we had chosen to stay there. Our Airbnb was off the beaten path but quiet.
We arrived in Sorrento, and it was hopping with tourists. We had just missed the church procession and people were beginning to move along from the piazza. We had dinner at Fauno Bar restaurant. They had served many Americans before and we were in and out of the restaurant in American Standard Time. They brought us lemon granita shots with our bill (lemon slush).
We stopped for groceries for the morning and then chose to walk back to Sant’Agnello. Raphael suggested walking over trying to catch a bus. With the holiday the buses would be overflowing with people. We walked and walked. Lots of miles every day.
I had washed two loads of laundry in the morning and spent the next while folding and dispersing clothes. Nice to have clean stuff to wear again.