Sorrento

So, this is all of the things I've done in Sorrento... they would have gone up one at a time, but the internet at this hotel is lame and they make us pay for it unless its after 9 pm, which... well that's when we go out so... here it is.

Friday July 3rd - Today we woke up and headed to our last site visit in Rome: The Capitoline Hill Museum. The museum is made up of two buildings and we started on the one on the right. I would give the cardinal direction, but I have no idea what it was. However, I do know that one of the buildings, where the mayor now works is overlooking the Roman Forum. Inside the museum were many different types of artifacts including busts, statues both bronze and marble, and mosaics. The most exciting aspect of the museum, or at least one of the most exciting, was the original of a statue that is on Brown’s campus on Lincoln Field. There was also a small remaining part of the temple of Jupiter as well just kind of sitting there in a giant way.

After the museum we did probably one of the coolest things we could have in Rome. We had an authentic Roman meal on the Via Appia. Although getting there was quite the task. We waited for (I think) an hour for a bus to come and bring us to the Via Appia, and it was HOT outside. Once there we had to walk a little further, but when we got there it was totally worth it. The restaurant had walls of an ancient mausoleum with tents as a ceiling. The first course consisted of two different types of pretty garlicy cheese that were just freaking fantastic, a piece of ham with honey, a piece of toast with sliced olives on it, and a biscuit of some sort. The second course was this ridiculously delicious piece of lasagna with ridiculously delicious cheese sauce. At our table there was always an extra plate of stuff, and I regrettably, or not so regrettably(?), downed that extra piece before the next course which was chicken in a fish sauce. There were too many bones in it and I was too full from the two pieces of lasagna to eat it. Finally the dessert was this egg/milk/pepper/something else piece of flan. I wasn’t a huge fan because of the texture. Anyway, after this amazing meal we had to wait about another 30 minutes for the bus to come again. I was exhausted at this point and went back to the Candia and took a nap, packed, and got ready to go out for our last night in Rome. All I’m going to say about that last night is that we went to the same club and I danced a lot…

Saturday July 4th – Today was bittersweet. We had to say goodbye to Ayden and Sarah since they were off on their way back to the states on Monday. We had a 4 hour bus ride where I slept most of the time since I didn’t sleep that much the night before. Half way through we stopped at an Autogrille or something like that. It was overwhelming. This place sold everything from computers to pizza and French fries to stuffed animals and magazines. After this we continued driving and I woke up when Cris started pointing out the freaking amazing view from the high twisting mountain. I won’t lie, I had to force myself to look out the window down the hill to the ocean and the trees and the view and the OCEAN and the TREES and VIEW. During this heavenly view though the bus driver was crazy and kept speeding up around corners. I swear we were going to fall off that cliff. Finally though we got into Sorrento and to our hotel, where we have air conditioning, but have to pay for the internet. You win some you lose some. We also won since the beach is right around the corner, the town is a 10 minute walk away, and there are so. Many. Lemons. Everything smells so damn good.

After Cris showed us around for a bit, a few of us looked around but eventually I ended up back at the hotel after eating out with Amy, Asia, Christina. We didn’t have the whole family because we lost Rachel somewhere along the way. It was good though. The pizza here is much better. After getting to the hotel I hung out on the terrace for a bit, but decided not to go out because I was really tired and wanted to be on my game for our first day off in Sorrento.

Sunday July 5th – Waking up around 11 was wonderful. After waking up I went out into town with Sara and Artemis and we looked around at all the little shops and headed to lunch. The olives on the pizza I had here were the best olives I’ve ever had. They didn’t taste like regular olives. I want them all the time now. Following this I went back to the Candia and chilled for a bit with the roomie, Luke, while we waited for stores to reopen from siesta. Again around 6 I went out with Artemis and Sara and we eventually met up with Luke and Brian for lunch where I had yet another amazing pizza with kiwi and pineapple. The pineapple was to die for. Ugh. I never want fruit in America again. After this we decided to just walk, and we did. We walked past these medieval (?) ruins, and kept walking up the hill until we reached another amazing view of the city and ocean near a lemon/olive/grape grove. Walking down was a little scary as cars and vespas were coming at us all over the place. Luckily we all made it back safely and headed back to the candia after grabbing some limoncello/bubblegum gelato. I didn’t know it was bubblegum until after I had purchased it. I still loved it though. Finally, after another fun night on the terrace I went to sleep to prepare for Pompeii. And luckily I did because we spent six hours there in the sun…

Monday July 6th – 7 am the alarm clock goes off and I’m excited to go to the amazing breakfast we have here, but not excited to be up at 7 am. 7:30 rolls around and I get up and go downstairs to eat. There was sooooooooooooo much food. Croissonts, meat, cheese, bread, eggs, fruit, juice, cereal, jam, Nutella, everything! I made a sandwich to eat while at Pompeii because there is no way in hell I’m paying for food out there! We set off to walk to the train station where we took an hour train to Pompeii. It was about 10 am when we arrived. After another 30 minutes of organizing, talking, and getting into the actual area we started off into the main forum. The area here is way more preserved than what I expected. Apparently, for us at least, Vesuvius erupting was a great thing! So much was still there, it appeared as though everything was there except the roofs of the buildings! The place was also just ginormous. There were so many buildings, and roads, and columns, and mosaics, and frescos. On top of the stuff we’ve already seen other places, there were the plaster people and dogs, or people and dogs who had disintegrated, but someone was able to make plaster copies of them because of the way the ash and rocks preserved everything. We looked around for 6 hours. I was exhausted. Absolutely exhausted. Getting on the train and sitting down was glorious. After arriving home an hour later I showered and tried to nap, but failed miserably. At 8:30 Amy and Rachel and I went to dinner at a restaurant down a side street. I ordered just the basic margherita pizza and a large beer. I’ve discovered after being here that I want to always have olive oil and balsamic in my house with bread because its just absolutely amazing. After we were finished about 1.5 hours later the waiter brought out free shots of limoncello. I had both mine and Rachel’s because she couldn’t really stomach the stuff. After this we wandered around trying to find a cool bar to sit at. We ended up at a place that was a Disco/Bar/Lounge, although I’m not sure where the disco part came in because there wasn’t any place to dance. The place was furnished in all white and glass and there were red, purple, and blue lights all around the bar. They had a 5 Euro sex on the beach deal, so of course I opted for that to get the most bang for my buck. The man sitting next to Amy at the bar was just sitting on his computer playing some online poker… it was random. After this we met up with Artemis, Sara, Luke, and Brian and sat at a restaurant in the main square for a few drinks. We were having a good time and thinking about leaving when out of nowhere the lights went out all over the plaza and a siren started going off. We weren’t sure if we were supposed to run, be okay with it, or scream in panic. Apparently we were supposed to just be okay with it. Apparently this happens a lot when too many lights are on, or something like that. The waiter tried telling Brian what was happening, and that was his explanation. The alarm was maybe for a shop whose workers lived near it and would need to take care of the fish or other frozen or cold items in case something like this were to happen. After it ended, it started up 2 more times. Quite annoying really. Finally we started heading home on the small streets and of course the lights go off again all down the street so we used the small flashlights on our phone to light the path. This was… less than a desirable environment to be in, although the ocean did look quite beautiful with no lights on around us. We got back to our hotel and I slept until 7:20 the next morning.

Tuesday July 7th – After another amazing breakfast we headed out to Herculaneum, a site that was even more well preserved than Pompeii, although it doesn’t receive the same PR (as my dad said), probably because it just isn’t as massive as Pompeii. Here though there were amazing frescos that were really well preserved as well as mosaics, roofs, baths, and villas. Probably my favorite part of Herculaneum was seeing the fascinating, vibrant reds, yellows, and oranges that were used together, even on some of the columns. After Christina and Asia’s presentation it was nice to be “efficient” and get through all of the place in a timely manner and not having to wait for stragglers all the time. After Herc we went to Oplontis, another extremely well preserved villa because it was covered by both the ash from Mount Vesuvius and then covered by the lava as well. This place had the most astounding frescos ever. EVER. It was beautiful and small and quick, but so interesting. Its so wonderful seeing the small things like this that I would never know to visit if I were to have not taken this class.

Now it’s the evening and I’m relaxing before dinner and the next two days where we will be going to the museum in Naples on Wednesday and Capri, our last visit ever, on Thursday.

Wednesday/Thursday 8th and 9th – Wednesday we went to a museum in Naples to look at statuary, frescoes, and mosaics, pretty much a culmination of everything we’ve learned and seen in the class about art. It was a nice quick beautiful trip. Very fitting for our last museum visit.



All I’m saying about Thursday: Capri. Top of the World. Heaven. Views that would have made me cry had I not controlled it. So upset I can’t visit whenever I want.