Pompeii

Catching the train in Rome was another adventure. Our B&B had issues getting through on the phone to order a cab, and when they did finally order one it didn't show up. We waited as long as we could, then caught another cab, and made slow progress through the lovely Rome traffic toward Termini station. We were going at just a fast enough pace to make things interesting, but there was no way we were going to make it. We pulled into the station about the time the train was supposed to leave, but we had a stroke of good luck. We noticed on the board that it was delayed 5 minutes! We ran to the correct platform and one of the first cars we could, but it ended up being delayed by another 15 minutes so we had no trouble getting our seats.

The train ride down to Naples was beautiful, exactly the kind of mountainous countryside that Italy is known for. We were in Naples itself for a grand total of about 20 minutes to switch trains, but we really weren't missing anything as it's a really ugly city and petty crime is supposed to be terrible.

We made it to Pompeii about 3:00 pm, 30 minutes before the ruins closed, so we had all afternoon and evening to explore all that Pompeii has to offer......which is basically nothing. We ate pizza and gelato and spent a lot of our time sitting in the main square, walking around, or playing cards. Exploring the ruins Friday morning was worth the wait, though. The weather was excellent, and seeing the well preserved buildings, frescoes, and even bodies, was very interesting.

Still, after we thoroughly explored the ruins (and there not being anything else to do) we grabbed our bags from the hostel and caught the first train we could for Salerno.