Isn’t there supposed to be more death?
Wednesday 17 September 2008
“Today is your chance to explore the ancient ruins of Pompeii with a local guide. Later we take in the beautiful scenery of southern Italy as we travel east to board our overnight ferry to Greece.” Contiki Itinerary.
We packed up our tents early that morning. By this time most of us didn’t bother with the tents for the one night stints and had either slept under the stars or were forking out the money for stays in the cabins that were always in our campsites.
In fact by then there was only ever about twelve to fifteen tents up, half had had enough of camping. I didn’t blame them, I had gotten to the point of not even blowing up the air mattress and just sleeping on the ground.
It wasn’t as bad as you would think, I had become apt at falling asleep as soon as my head hit the most useless pillow in exsitence that I had brought with me. It was one of those like bean bag tote pillows, not reccemended.
All of us still camping were moving a bit sluggishly this morning, we had gotten a bit authentic with our camping experience last night, as some of the guys built a campfire and got the guitar out. Not to forget the miles of alochol that every always just seemed to make appear at the drop of a hat.
So we all joined in for a time singing very bad songs, quite loudly, there was also the guitar being played very badly, quite loudly. Smoke became a problem at one point because we were most definately not supposed to have a fire going, and we tried to make the smoke disappear. I’m not sure what we would have done if someone had come to check on us, I’m not sure that saying we were smoking was going to cut it as some of the guys suggested.
But it was a fun night, that went on well after I hit the floor. I am thankful again to the fact that I seem to have developed an ability to sleep through any noises made by the people following me, though I seem to wake up without fail at midnight for a bathroom run.
Kristy however seemed not to have that luxury as she always regaled me with stories of what I had missed the night before. I seemed to have picked a good person to share the tent experience with, thank Fate. She partied only every other night and never woke me up when she came in and I was about the same.
Gen on the other hand and a lot of the others didn’t have the same luxury. Marty had gotten locked up with Locky which was something he probably regretted later in the camping experience.
And Gen, poor Gen had gotten Sherri who she told me usually came in the tent early in the morning, trying to be quiet but usually ended up shouting, “Are you awake?” in Gen’s ear. Though I think in the couple of times Gen usually repaid the favour so they were probably well suited to each other.
Soon enough we had everything ready and back on the bus, long after the Topdeck bus had headed out. We were still the most unmotivated group in the world when it came to getting away from the campsite and actually getting to places on time. Clearly demostrated that day.
Kath and a few of the others had gotten a cabin and before we were cleared to leave they had to return the key. Simply enough surely, but not for our group. They had lost the key and had to end up paying the replacement fee we waited in the bus for about fifteen minutes as everyone ran around. That incurred a five minute lecture from Bridget once we finally got moving. I tuned her out.
We were now finally headed towards Pompeii.
Pompeii is an odd little place and found a bit oddly, at least I think so, but I wasn’t really paying attention to where we were going as we headed through the countryside so there was probably big blindingly obvious signs the whole way.
“Guided Tour of Ancient Pompeii. The once thriving city of Pompeii lay buried for centuries under thick layers of ash which rained down after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. It was rediscovered in the 17th century and two-thirds of the city has now been excavated. A local guide takes you to the important sites and explains the history of this fascinating city.” Contiki Itinerary.
The Guided Tour was an optional extra but it seemed like a good way to see Pompeii and actually know what I’m looking at instead of wandering around like I usually do at tourist spots.
You can see Mount Vesuvius in the background. But our tour guide quickly lead us through the main sights of the town and a lot of the city is still reasonably in tact appart from the whole death thing.
It is a nice a place to visit, there was even some of the molds of some people that had gotten caught in the eruption. Though I think it’s really interesting that in AD 62 they had a huge earthquake something like 7.5 on the scale that destroyed a lot of the buildings and a lot of people fleed the city. Then finally seventeen years they’re getting back on their feets and sorry your dead.
That was a pregant woman who got stuck in the way. Ouch. Though suprisingly it was her, a dog and I think a small child, that were the only ones in the city. I don’t know what I expected but I was thinking there was going to be more I don’t know death in the place. But apparently most of the relics and well dead people were in a museum in Naples. Kind of a let down.
Next up we toured around some of the few houses that we were standing.
That was one of the still standing grottos, sort of praying places, you can still see a lot of the murals on the walls which just look so ornate, espically considering the time period.
After that our tour guide disappeared. Actually quite literally, he had taken two phone calls during our tour that were not quick and then sort of ran out of the place. Not impressed.
We sort of wondered out of the place and back down the hill to where we were meeting everyone. After chilling and eating some very nice ice cream we headed back to the bus.
We were headed on our way to the port where we would meet our ship that would take us over to Corfu.
Tags: Corfu, Italy, Pompeii, Sorrento
