Aaron Kenter

We have been away from Naples for a whole week and I am only just now posting the pictures. Anyway, we had a very nice time there despite the fact that it is not a really nice city. The best thing in Naples is the archaeological museum. Other than that there is not much else to see there. Our stay was very nice though because we spent most of our time away from the city. Here is the rundown:

Day 1 – Pompeii:  Our first full day in Naples was spent exploring Pompeii. There were more other tourists there than there were in Ostia, but it is still a great place. We spent the entire day there and had a very nice time.

Day 2 – National Archaeological Museum: This day was a little rainy and not so nice, so we went to the museum. I really enjoyed looking at the collection and finding the sculptures of people/myths that I knew. After we finished with the museum we explored Naples a bit and decided that we did not like it. There was trash all over the streets and certain side roads looked like they belonged in a city of a third world country not in one of the largest cities of a western country.

Day 3 – Herculaneum, Mt. Vesuvius: In the morning we went to Herculaneum which is Pompeii’s less famous cousin. In the eruption of AD 79 it was covered much faster than Pompeii and so was better preserved. However, only about 4 full city blocks have been excavated as the site rests directly under a modern town! After that we took a bus to the top of Mt. Vesuvius and walked around the cone of the volcano. It was fun to see and the views of the surrounding area were fantastic. Vesuvius is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and they say that it is only a matter of time before it blows. After being up there and seeing just how heavily populated the surrounding countryside is I am sure that when it does erupt the results will be devastating. I certainly would not want to live around there.

Day 4 – Sorrento: We had intended to go to Capri on this day but we discovered that the trip would be way to expensive. Basically, just buying round trip tickets would have put us over budget for the day! So instead, we took the train to Sorrento which is a beautiful hill town overlooking the sea. We took in the sites and made friends with a Polish couple that we met there. Their English was perfect and they were as appalled as we were with the state of disorderliness and decrepitude of Naples. Both of these things surprised me a little as I would not expect a Pole to know English (German or Russian instead, I would have guessed) and I did not think of Poland as being in a much better state than that of Naples.  From what they said it sounded very nice, so I guess I need to reevaluate my opinion of Poland. At any rate, it was a fun day.

So that wraps up Naples. We are now in Umbria working on a farm. I will talk more about that in another post; suffice it to say that it is wonderful. The Naples pictures are now up, by the way.