Vacation - Napoli and Sorrento

We went to Napoli

and sorrento on

vacation last week,

and we got to see

Pompeii, Capri

and the Amalfi

coast.

[view of Vesuvius

from Sorrento]

It's too hot in southern Italy to actually go outside during July, but we did anyway

leading to our visit to Pompeii being like the bataan death march.

We stayed a few days in Napoli, (best pizza in Italy) then moved down

the coast to Sorrento taking a hydrofoil across the bay. The hotel in Sorrento

was the Plaza that has a rooftop pool. I'd like a service that could pick you up

by helicopter in Pompei and just fly back and drop you in that pool.

Unfortunately there's no service yet, so we took the CircumVesuviano train

back around to Sorrento, which is a pretty hot dust covered crowd leaving

Pompei. Luckily the Plaza is only about 2 blocks from the station, so we were

safely submerged in cool water 15 minutes after getting back.

The key to getting the best experience out of Pompeii is to go to the Archealogical

museum in Napoli first. Our bad luck there was a strike or some protest

that meant it was open, but we'd have to cross a crowd of angry napolitanos to

get in; no thanks. Most of the best mosaics and casts of people killed in Pompeii

were there.

Also I didn't get up to Herculanum and Vesuvius itself. I figure that next time

we come back it will still be here. After our vacation in NYC in August 2001 I

thought we'd have another chance to go to the WTC and go up to the roof, since

it was rained out when we went. But no. In this case we should be pretty safe

that no jerkwad is going to fly a plane into mount Vesuvius (they are welcome to

try though) so we'll go back some day to Napoli to eat the excellent deserts and

go to the museum and up to the volcano.