Due to our late night the previous night, we were pretty tired and sluggish the next morning, meaning that we were one of the last few people to get down to breakfast, cutting in a lot to our free time. On the plus side, Alice and I (who had been sharing a room) are both relatively tidy people and had been living out of a suitcase for the past two days, so there wasn't much to pack.
We went across the street to this little shop that was just filled with everything. My friend Leah actually described it as the shop that has everything you wanted but nothing you needed. All of the shelves were full from the ground to the ceiling, with buckets of products everywhere, making it very small and cramped and quite dark due to the lack of sunlight being let in. Despite this however, it was such a treasure trove. There was just an endless amount of things, from magnets to hats, makeup to cat food. It reminded me of a huge market stall crammed into a very small space. I managed to pick up a few bits and pieces as gifts for my mother.
We then went along the road where we indulged ourselves in a somewhere slightly more familiar - a supermarket. We had great fun trying to translate the foods into English, and buying enough chocolate and sweets to sink the Titanic. I also bought some Italian pasta for gifts.
We then left the hotel and all of its perks (including the free wifi - a luxury we didn't have in our next hotel!), got onto the coach for a three hour trip south to Sorrento and the famous Mount Vesuvius. Not much happened on this coach ride apart from everyone sleeping a lot - we really didn't sleep enough at night and so everyone made up for it during all of our coach journeys! The only noteworthy thing that happened during the coach journey was the discovery of what I have deemed the nicest toilets in Italy, which only beat the ones inside Vatican City by a fraction. The shop attached to them was, however, RIDICULOUSLY expensive.
We drove straight to Naples, where we had lunch before going onto our afternoon activity. We all knew that Naples is the actual home of pizza, so we were very excited to try some of it and we were not disappointed! However, my friends and I were quite full from our Haribo and Pringle filled coach journey, so we decided to share two mains between the three of us. It was delicious!
After a quick trip to the loo (which I have voted the worst toilet in Italy, just fyi) we went to meet up with our tour guide and walk the short distance to Herculaneum.
Herculaneum is a town that is very similar to Pompeii in a way, just less well known. It too was completely destroyed in the Mount Vesuvius eruption, but by mud rather than ash.
We could actually only see 30% of the town, because the other 70% has now been rebuilt on and is being used again for living and working purposes.
The thing about Herculaneum is that it used to be a seaside town, almost like a resort, and so had many docks and boat houses. Today, the sea is barely visible along the horizon.
The Romans (who built Herculaneum) were a little obsessed with straight roads and grid patterns when it came to designing their towns and cities - a bit like what you see in New York and America.
These picture are taken in a place that we would now call a fast food restaurant - McDonalds for the Romans. There had these large terracotta pots that they put the food in to keep the heat in. All of the technicolour marble on the surfaces is the original marble.
We then went into the town hall, which wasn't actually that large, but was filled with these beautiful works of art called freizes. They are all also originals, and are very carefully protected today.
We then went onto what would today be the main street, or the high street, although this is as far as has been uncovered due to the building down on the top of the rest of the town. And don't worry - we soon found the Roman pub!
We then went into a wealthy Roman's home. In the centre of the main room there was a large but shallow pool which would have been situated under a large hole in the ceiling to collect the rainwater which could then be used for washing and cleaning the homes and clothing.
It turns out that Romans were actually very proud of their gardens and loved to spend a lot of time in them, which believe me, isn't much of a surprise based on the weather! They put a lot of time and effort into ensuring they had the loveliest gardens of everyone.
Our tour guide told us a story of a wealthy man who's plot of land was too small to build a grand and magnificent garden on like he had wished. So instead, he built a small room will beautiful freizes and a fountain to be his indoor relaxation room instead of having a garden.
We then went into one of the famous Roman baths. Inside the first room, it was a kind of dressing room, or locker room where people would change for their spa experience. The second room looked very similar, but I think it was the hot room (it may have been the cold room though - I can't remember!). The last room was then the warm room where there was a large bath and some benches. There was also a hole in the ceiling to let some of the heat out and some of the breeze in. This was the room for gossip and catch ups. You can see how the various earthquakes over time have affected the bathroom by distorting and bending the bath that the Romans would have ensured was perfect.
The last part of the tour was the saddest and the most sobering. As I mentioned, Herculaneum was a sea side town and when the people knew that the volcano was erupting, they ran to the boat houses to try and escape over the water. However, the pyroclastic flows caught up with them and killed them all. We saw 5 boat houses, each filled with skeletons (although the were replicas, we were told that they were positioned exactly the same as they were found). Most of them had their mouths open, gasping for breaths, and had fallen on the floor when the poisonous gases reached them. In five tiny 2x3m boathouses, there were 300 skeletons.
Sorry to get a bit doom and gloom there - but like I said, sad and sobering. After that we left Herculaneum and headed for our new hotel in Sorrento. If you are ever in that area, I definitely recommend visiting Herculaneum as well as Pompeii, it's pretty fabulous!
Within 30 seconds of arriving in Sorrento, I had completely fallen in love with it - I mean just look at the initial photos from the coach!
After taking a completely wrong turn to a hotel, we had to turn around and walk up a hill, 26 very hot and hungry teenagers, all carrying very large suitcases. We weren't best pleased. However, when we got there, we received some very good news. We had thought that the room situation would be the same as in the previous hotel, with Alice and I sharing a room with two other girls and Leah in a different room. However, there had been a mix up, and the hotel now had some 3 person rooms available. We instantly volunteered and we got the 3 person room, so Alice, Leah and I could all share! And, it gets better. Our room was slightly apart from everyone else's, and we found out when we went in that this was because it was a 5* room with a sea view balcony!!!! To say we were a little ecstatic would be a bit of an understatement!
That evening, after dinner (which really wasn't great), we went into the city of Sorrento, where we had been booked a trip into a Gelateria (an Italian Ice Cream place) to see how ice cream was made and best of all, get to sample some of it! It was AMAZING! So much better than any of the stuff we have in England! I would go back purely for the ice cream!
Then that evening, we were a little unwise. My friends and all had all purchased red bull earlier that day when we in the supermarket and for two of us it would be the first time we ever tried it. I have to say, I found it disgusting, it tasted like Cal pole, and I couldn't drink more than 3 sips! Alice and Leah however... Goodness me they're lightweights! It hit them hard and they got so hyper! I don't know about giving you wings, they fell on the floor and couldn't get up because they were laughing so hard. I'm serious, they were on the floor for about an hour. Then Alice threatened to drink the rest of mine, and me being the un-hyper sensible adult (and buzzkill) I am went to pour it down the sink to ensure that she didn't. I got what was coming to me though, I ran into the bathroom and slipped and landed on my bum because the floor was wet!
Later than evening, after they had actually managed to stand up again, we all got into bed and had one of those serious heart-to-hearts, the kind that you can only have when you spend every second together in Italy.
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