Napoli Napoli!

Since I was able to see so much of what there was in Rome over MLK weekend with Jayme and company, I decided that when Mom came over to visit, we'd go somewhere else within Italy. I've always wanted to see Pompeii - I guess maybe as a factor of all the Roman myths and such that I read growing up - and so I decided that we could take the train from Rome to Naples, and then spend time in Naples and see Pompeii and Herculaneum, which were relatively close by.
Of course, the whole journey started off interestingly, when Mom took a bump on her flight over to London, meaning that by the time she got here on the bus from Heathrow (at 0155) we had a whole hour and a half to go back to my room before catching the 0345 bus to Stansted airport, and embarking on the adventure that a Ryan Air flight is (although boarding is worse in Italy, at least they queue in an orderly fashion in the UK). So we were definitely both tired, since she'd been up for the flight, and I'd been up waiting and worrying, but we made it to Rome okay, and even managed to navigate the bus and metro system to get to the train station with only minor inconvenience. There was a train leaving for Naples relatively soon, and being the spendthrift travellers, we chose to take the not so fast train that was cheaper. Big Mistake! At one stop, we ended up with a group of about 15-20 schoolboys and a few of their girlfriends boarding the car we were in, and for the duration of the trip to the Naples train station, they proceeded to shout loudly out the windows at each other, throw wadded up newspapers, smoke when they weren't supposed to, sing along with the mobile's ring tones, and just be a huge nuisance in general. The extra $10 a person for the fast train on the way back, with semi-private compartments was definitely a relief after the trip down to Naples.
As we're pulling into the Napoli Centrale station, I realized that the confirmation I had printed out for our hotel reservation didn't have the address of where the hotel was, but we knew it was supposed to be just off the Piazza Garibaldi. So, in the rain, we got to wander around and ask about 4 different directions before we finally got there. The initial travel forecast had said rain only the last day we were there, but it was cold and rainy the entire time. We didn't do much that evening since we both fell asleep until dinner time. But luckily the desk guy was able to give us directions to a pizzeria/restaurant he said was pretty good, so armed with our map and like 2 phrases of Italian, we set out to brave the bus system and an on foot navigation of the streets of Naples. I had thought Rome was a fairly dirty city, but Naples definitely takes the cake! But oh my gosh, the food! We had an entire Margherita brick oven cooked pizza for only 3 Euros, and then I had a bowl of baked gnocchi that was simply divine. So dinner and the super long train ride were pretty much all we did the day we got there.
The next morning, we went back over to the train station, and headed to Herculaneum. We couldn't see out the windows through all the graffiti and ended up going one stop too far, but managed to get turned around with only wasting about 20 minutes although it seemed longer due to the rain and wind. Seeing Hurculaneum was incredible though, to see this huge excavation pit in the ground, and realize that the sea used to come up that far, and knowing that so much was still buried under the modern city. I couldn't believe how bright the colors in all the houses still were, and despite the miserable weather, I just kept thinking "Wow" to myself. I think we managed to see almost everything. After we left just before the site closed (frozen solid and soaked), Mom decided that we'd take the train to Sorrento, just to see it, so reluctantly, I agreed. Sorrento was mostly closed up when we got there since it was a Sunday, so again, on a whim, we ended up on the bus out to Amalfi. The view on the drive was spectacular, since it was right along the coast the entire time, but I still to this day don't understand how the bus made if safely with how sharp some of the switchbacks were, I was definitely glad not to be the one riding. By the time we got to Amalfi, it was dark, and we weren't sure what time the last bus went back, so it was a bit tense as we wondered if we had gotten ourselves stranded in Amalfi for the night, but we somehow made it back, and I suppose it was worthwhile just for the view on the ride out.
Pompeii was our destination the next day, but since we had gotten back pretty late the night before, we decided to sleep in a bit, and not try to get there for the 0830 opening time. When we got there around 11, and they weren't open yet, we were thanking our lucky stars for deciding to rest. The weather was much the same, although we enjoyed a little bit of time without rain. I'm glad we did Pompeii second, because it was a much larger site, and I think Herculaneum would have seemed insignificant by comparison if we'd done it second, although both sites were incredible and well worth the time to visit. Several of the houses were undergoing more work, or were closed off to the public, and I'm glad I got to go now, because who knows if it will even be open to the public in twenty years at this rate. I kept trying to imagine what it must have been like, because things were basically suspended the way they had been in 79 A.D. I suppose that's about as close to time-travel as we'll ever get, walking through the streets there, and it was an incredible experience. After walking through the vast majority of the excavation site, we left, planning on going to the Acheological Museum of Naples the next day, so we didn't buy any postcards or souveniers at Pompeii.
But (of course there was a but coming), when we got back to the hotel that night, we found out that the Archeological Museum - which has almost all the smaller artifacts from Pompeii and Herculaneum - was closed on Tuesdays. Since there was nothing else we particularly wanted to see in Naples, we took the (fast) train to Rome, and I decided that somehow I had to convince Mom to go to the top of the cupola on St. Peter's. So I told her we could just go the level where the elevator took us, and see the inside of the dome up close. But, I figured that once I got her up there, it would simply be a matter of pride and the money spent to convince her to go all the way. She may have been ready to kill me for forcing her to climb all the way to the top, but I also think she agreed with me that it was worthwhile. When we finally left the rooftop and headed down, there was a special mass ongoing for the main chapel part, and so the statue of St. Peter was elaborately decorated in robes and jewels, quite a change from how he looked the last time I saw him. It was a disappointment to have missed the museum in Naples, but the visit to St. Peter's (and it was my 3rd visit... as a non-Catholic!) was incredible.
After surviving the cattle call that was boarding the Ryanair flight out of Rome, we finally made it back to my room in Cambridge, and I had a short 3 day week worth of classes and reading before we prepared to see off for Paris... but that is another story.