The final excursion day of the cruise was to Naples, Italy, where Matt and I had briefly spent time before. We got the chance to visit Pompeii in January 2012, on our weeklong engagement trip through Italy. (We called it an engagement trip because on the first day, Matt proposed in Rome).
I still say that second day in Pompeii was slightly better than that first day. No offense to Matt, but it's freaking POMPEII!
Anyway, I was starting to feel slightly better by the time we docked in Naples, so I headed out. Our tour guide arranger extraordinaire, Chris, had arranged a guide to take us to Mount Vesuvius (which Matt and I hadn't done the first time around), do a wine tasting lunch, and also have an afternoon guided tour through Pompeii. We were pretty stoked; I was still groggy and a tad out of it from all the medications I was taking.
First stop: Vesuvius. We had to walk all. the. way. up.
Not entirely enjoyable considering I wasn't feeling 100%, plus you know how hard it is to walk in sand? Well, that's essentially what the terrain was like, soft and pliable volcano ash and dirt.
In typical Italian style, the first visit time was manually change to 9:17, because, you know, 9:00 or even 9:15 was too early.
But there were some outstanding views of Naples to be had!
What we could tell from our Italian volcanologist (?) who was talking far too fast to really keep up, was that when it erupted in 79 AD and destroyed Pompeii it actually was so violent that it split the mountain in two, hence the giant crater left in its wake.
Super high and puffy cloud adjacent!
Wasn't planning to, but uh, okay.
Matt wanted a picture posing with this volcanic rock. Happy to oblige.
Still not feeling great, but trying! Matt was trying to cheer me up too, in between all my sniffles and coughing.
After surviving, we carefully walked back down the mountain and over to wine and food. At the foot of Vesuvius was a great little winery where I swear you could taste the influence of the volcano in the soil. I swear.
And the food? Oh....
We all died and went to spaghetti heaven. This was hands down the best, most al dente-ist and tomato basil perfection I'd ever had. An old grandmotherly lady brought out this enormous bowl filled to the brim and said we couldn't leave until we had finished. We were just doing what we were told and I think nearly everyone had two helpings.
Can we briefly talk about this cake? This cross between a coffee cake and ricotta cheesecake? Matt still talks about it.
Finally we made it to Pompeii and met our guide who showed us around. When Matt and I came, we had winged it and spent an entire day just walking around, so it was nice to have a little more context and guidance, and to see areas we hadn't seen before.
Here's the gang mulling around.
One of the commercial streets.
This was once a fast-food type business, where the merchants would sell hot meals to patrons.
Inside one of the grand houses...
With even a table bottom still there!
And a great-looking backyard view.
Here's more of the ruins. At this point we were standing on land that had yet to be excavated - so there's even more underneath!
Inside one of the richly appointed bath houses....
I even found the pillar I took a picture with on my first trip! Here's me in 2012...
And then in 2014.
(I'll totally do it again if we go back, too. I've decided that's my piece of history. Mine.)
Pompeii, you will always be a source of adventure with more to see and do every trip.
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