Sunday - Pompeii and Vesuvius

Sunday was the first of our all day tours.  It was one that John and I were very much looking forward to.  The all day tour to Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii was one we found online through Viator, and it had gotten a lot of very good reviews.  We were picked up from our hotel after breakfast (complementary from the hotel because John has a lot of Marriott points) and headed out for Pompeii.  The tour group was about 11 people, and John and I were the only ones who weren't coming from a cruise ship.

The tour of Pompeii was good.  It took us all through the city, which was quite a lot bigger then we thought it would be.  It was a city of 40,000 or so people that was covered, and you really are walking the length of it to get to the different areas.  It was pretty amazing to be walking the same streets that ancient Romans used to walk.  We got to see an ancient pizza oven (no tomatoes till the 1400s, but it was crust with toppings on it), the theater, the forum, and many other areas.  The one that stood out the most on the tour (and the most intact building) is the brothel.  It really is crazy to see the stone beds built into the building, and then the erotic mosaics that were used as the menu.  Our guide was interesting and enthusiastic, and did a great job of moving us around the super huge 50+ person tour groups.

A pizza lunch was included in our tour, and with the rest of the pizza in Naples, was pretty awesome.  In Naples, I didn't have a pizza that was not cooked in a wood oven.  The afternoon then was the drive up the Mt. Vesuvius (pretty harrowing experience in a tour van).  The road up the mountain is so narrow that vans need to honk before they turn a corner just in case another tour van is coming.  The climb up Mt. Vesuvius wasn't guided, it was more of everyman for themselves.  So John and I separated from the pack, and trekked up the mountain in record time.  Unfortunately it was a bit smoggy that day, so the pictures of the view of the bay, and of Naples aren't the best.  Still, the view was pretty awesome.  The city really does wrap around the mountain.  We were able to look into the crator of the mountain, and it was smoking!  The hike up and around the mountain really wasn't too bad, but I think it was the hike down that killed my knees and my calfs.  We had to do it a little bit fast because we were cutting it close with our deadline to meet the bus.

So we did end up surviving our first full day tour.  It was about 6-7 hours, but with how much you get to see and hike, it kind of felt longer.  After taking a reviving nap, it was time to go find some place for dinner.  John and I were determined to finally find a place that we had read about, the pizzeria where the margarita pizza was invented Pizzeria Brandi.  We were able to find it with not too much trouble, it was off in a little alley like so many of Naples restaurants.  Unfortunately we were a little early (7pm) and most restaurants open at 7:30pm.  So to kill some time, we went and walked around the Basilica di San Francesco di Paola and the Piazza Plebiscito.  This was one site that we had visited before on our walking tour, but I guess on Sunday nights it kind of becomes a free for all with families letting their kids run rampant, and watching them from the Basilica's steps.  Finally heading back to the pizzeria, we were able to get some dinner.  We had one pizza margarita (because you kind of have to) and then I got one that seems to have an interesting assortment of toppings, clams, mozzarella, mushrooms, and meat.  What we didn't know when I ordered that pizza is that the toppings were not all over the pizza but sectioned off in four different parts, and the translated name was four pizzas in one.  The pizzas were good, but surprising not that much better then all the other pizzas that we had in Naples (which by this point was our 4th or 5th pizza).  So if you go to Naples, get the pizza, and odds are it will be good.