Pompei, Sorrento, Capri

After a short week of classes we were off to Pompei on a class field trip on Friday. We departed from Piazza Trilussa at 7 am. We had to get up at 5:45 to shower, eat breakfast, and pack lunches for the day. Once on the bus we had a couple hour ride down to Pompei. We stopped once in Naples for breakfast, then cruised the rest of the way to Pompei. The bus dropped us off on one side of the Ruins and throughout the day we were to walk to the other side to catch the bus there. We got there at around 10 o'clock and we had class until right before 4 o'clock. We spent the whole afternoon touring and learning about Pompei before and after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. We stopped for lunch after we saw the Theatre. Below are some pictures we took at the Theatre.

After lunch we continued our tour and saw some old shops and homes that were preserved in the ash. We also saw another ampitheatre and the Pompei Forum. We then stopped for a break at a Coffee Shop/ Cafeteria in the middle of the Ruins. We then continued on to the other side to meet up with the bus so we could grab our bags. Once we got to the other edge of the 'scavi', excavations, we had a 5 minute walk to the bus and then we went to the train station to catch a bus to Sorrento. It was about a half an hour ride and our roommate Adam showed us right where our Hostel was, he stayed at it a couple of weeks back. Once we got to the hostel we checked in, FYI you need your passports, which I didn't have and you also have to pay with cash. Here's the rest of the Pompei pictures..

After checking in we put on our suits and headed to the beach. It was getting late, around 6ish, but we wanted to get in the water after being in the sun the whole day.. After cooling off and swimming awhile we went and ate some pizza at a local place. The pizza there was awesome, but I didn't eat all day either so that might have been why it tasted so good. Here's some beach pictures and whatnot of Sorrento.

The next morning we had to head to the port to check out the ferry times to the island Capri. Mark and I left early to check the train schedule cause we were gonna head back later that afternoon. We had an hour train ride back to Naples and the last train left Naples for Rome at 8:30 and it would be about a three hour train ride home from there.. So we had to plan our day around the trains we were going to catch to go home.. We bought tickets for the 'Paul and Shark' ferry at 10:45 and were free to catch any ferry coming back. The 'ferry' we took was actually a huge cruise ship, a couple hundred people could fit on it easily.  Here's a couple pictures of our boat ride to the island.

Once we got to Capri we contemplated what to do next. We settled on a boat tour around the island. The tour was two hours and took us around the whole island and showed us some of the main tourist attractions. Our boat driver was really cool and he interacted with everyone on the boat and made it fun. The boat tour took just under three hours. It was pretty amazing because the water was so blue. We did stop at the blue grotto and get out and get in row boats and go inside the grotto. I put up some videos of the boat tour, they can be seen on my youtube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/schmitty111?feature=mhee . I'm still working on uploading the one from inside the blue grotto cause it's a couple minutes long and it takes forever to upload. Since my camera went dead as soon as I got to Pompei the day before, Mark gave me his Flip Cam and I took some videos for him. The driver stopped at one point to let us out to swim for a couple of minutes.. He said he usually doesn't do that, but since he liked us it was ok. Here's some pictures from the tour.. 

Here's the rest of the pictures from the tour: 

After the tour we had pizza at a place that the guide recommended, then headed to the beach for awhile. Mark and I had to leave around 5 o'clock to be back to Sorrento at 6 to catch the 6:30 train to Naples (which was an hour long) to catch the last 8:30 train to Rome.. That was the plan.. So we headed  out after spending about an hour on the beach. We headed to the port to hop on the boat to go back to the mainland. Once we were back in Sorrento we had to hike up the countryside to get to the train station, and we only had about 25 minutes to do so. We got there right on time but it took a little longer that we expected getting out tickets and we missed our 6:30 train to Naples, so we got on the next train and waited for it to depart at 7:00. Mark and I thought we were toast, we would have to spend the night somewhere in Naples. 

We just waited and hoped. Once we got to the main train station in Naples we hurried to the nearest ticket booth and asked for direction and the guy directed us to the right place. When we got off the train it was 8:05 and we thought the last train was 8:15. We got to the right place to buy tickets and the kiosk said our train departed at 20:17 and it was about 8:15 so we had to run to get on the train. Turns out the train got switched so it would leave later than planned. whew. It ended up leaving at 8:45 and we  were headed home! The train stopped at a bunch of stops along the way and it took about three and a half hours to get home. Once we got home, we caught a night bus to San Peitro Piazza and we were home free, in our own beds!