We really wanted to see Pompeii, and then head on to the Amalfi Coast town of Positano, but it was too far to go in a day. So the great thing about Sorrento is that it was a convenient place to stop for the afternoon and night, and it put us in a prime spot to catch the early morning bus to Positano.
So a quick note on Sorrento: it was a fun town to walk around. A lot of people like to stay here a few days, then venture up to Pompeii and down the Amalfi Coast. The main church in the piazza is a cool, yellow color, and the bells ring merrily. Really. Kind of a BING-BONG-BING-BONG sound, as opposed to the thunder of most church bells. Maybe that is because they worship the lemon here. Sorrento is built up on a cliff, and so you have to walk the ravine down to the “beaches” at the base of the cliff. The narrow streets are fun to walk, and they were, at the time, really soccer crazy for the Italian team, because they had not been eliminated from the world cup yet.
We had a huge, very comfortable room in a great place: the Ulisses Delux Hostel. I would stay there again, as it was probably the best value room of the trip.
We arrived in Sorrento via the Circumvesuviana Train which comes from Naples and stops at Pompeii.
We left Sorrento on the SITA bus, which stops right by the train station and serves the towns along the Amalfi coast.
Pompeii
Gail, who is really no fan of history or museums, was totally taken by Pompeii. It is that compelling and interesting.
We caught the high speed train from Roma to Napoli, then switched over to the regional Circumvesuviana Train which connects Naples and Sorrento, stopping at Pompeii along the way. The hardest part of this journey was actually finding where the Circumvesuviana leaves the Napoli Train Station. It was kind of on the lower level and way over on the side.
We got off at Pompeii, and put our bags in storage at the visitor center. It cost us €11 each to go into Pompeii, but then you are free to just wander around.
A very short history: Pompeii used to be a port city, but now it is landlocked. It was settled about 600BC and then around the year zero it became a Roman colony. Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79AD and it remained buried until the 1700s.
What I thought most interesting were the details. Things like the original lead water pipes. Innovative, but think about it: lead pipes. The streets have chariot wheel ruts worn in them, and you can see where they were repaving at the time of the eruption. There were blocks placed at the ends of the streets, just lower than axle height on the chariots. One block designated a one-way street, two blocks a two way street. The blocks were also used by pedestrians to cross the streets, sidewalk to sidewalk, when they were flushing water down the streets to clean them.
I read that the white bits of tile in the sidewalks were mixed in to reflect the moonlight, so they could see where to walk at night. The columns were made of brick, with a plaster facade on them. There were two amphitheatres, a small one and a huge one. We walked into a brothel, the Lupanare, which still had the original wall paintings showing various sex positions, and the stone beds.
Bet that was a lot of fun.
Stone.
Beds.
We toured the baths: hot water rooms, steam rooms with arched ribbed ceilings to minimize dripping, and cold baths. There are locker rooms with statues dividing the storage spaces.
Along one street is a series of “fast food” type places, where large pots of food were kept cooking for take out meals, and the bakeries were right next door, grinding stones still in place. Lots of original tile work and frescoes are still visible, along with the biggest house, “House of the Faun” with a statue from 200BC in the fountain. Many houses had interior water wells, and the marble lips of the wells have rope-grooves worn in them.
One house has a tile work “Beware Of Dog” sign - Cave Canem – at the entrance to warn visitors. Of course there are a couple of the neat corpses; plaster casts of the voids left by bodies buried in the dust.
We spent many hours, hot and sweaty, but enjoyable and interesting hours wandering the ruins. You get a great map and booklet describing details of each restored site as part of the entrance fee.
When we were done, we picked up our bags, walked out to wait for the next train coming through, and enjoyed an impromptu concert by the ice cream man.
-June 2010