Miles Walked 16.5 367.9
Feet Climbed 940 40,190
Song of the Day: Window on the World by John Hiatt
A cup of coffee in a shaky hand
Waking up in a foreign land
Tryin' to act like I got something planned
That's my window on the world
Other than a visit to Pompei, these past two days were pretty lazy. On Friday morning, we hiked around Positano, and then set off via bus for two nights in Sorrento. This was about a 15 mile bus ride, mostly along the curvy, mountainess coastal road. I think this bus is lovingly referred to as the vomit rocket....once again, the bus was jam packed, with many people standing for most of the ride (including Linda and I). Linda had a woman next to her who got sick. There was a young boy next to me throwing up most of the ride. The Dad of the young boy asked me when we would reach Positano, as that's where they wanted to get off. I told him that we passed Positano about 30 minutes ago! You might recall we had a similar experience yesterday and missed our stop by 5 miles.
Sorrento is a very beautiful coastal town on the bay of Naples. It has a permanent population of 16,000, but grows substantially through tourists, both people who overnight like us, and day trippers. The past two days, there were large cruise ships that stopped in Sorrento for the day.
We are staying in a very nice hotel on a main plaza in Sorrento. It is very lively, with lots of outdoor restaurants. Every night at 5:00, cars are prohibited from the main streets around this central tourist area, making for a very active street scene. Our hotel is the large building in the background here:
From what I can tell, weddings are a big industry in this area. We have also talked to several people who are here celebrating their honeymoon or some wedding anniversary. When we were in Positano on Thursday, a young couple got married at our hotel. When the wedding was over, they jumped in the swimming pool of our hotel. Linda was there, but unfortunately, didn't have a camera with her at the time. We did pass a few weddings on Friday in Sorrento:
In the past, I have talked about the large Sorrento lemons. These things are huge, larger than a grapefruit. Apparently this is the type of lemon used to make lemmoncello. It seems like every shop sells lemmoncello, with "factories" advertised everywhere. I thought about using the old Trini Lopez song "Lemmon Tree" as the song of the day. Here is shot from one of the many stands on the streets. You will note a "please do not touch" sign on the Lemmon box...of course, I touched...
There are also many horse carriages on the street. This morning, we looked out our bathroom window and saw this guy getting his carriage ready for the day:
On Saturday, we took a short 30 minute train ride to Pompei. We signed up to take a two hour guided group tour. Sounded like a good idea, but the group was too big and it was hard to hear the guide at times. Still, we did pick up some interesting tidbits along the way. It was extremely hot at Pompei, with temperatures reaching the low 90's.
Pompei was founded in 600 BC. In 79 AD when Vesuvius blew, Pompei was a port city, with a population of about 20,000. About 2,000 people died from the eruptions in 79AD. Today, it sits about 10 miles inland, as the sea was filled in with all the debris from the explosion. Pompei was accidentally discovered in 1599 and excavations began in 1748. This is still an ongoing process.
A few fun facts about Pompei. The city of 20,000 had 40 bakeries, 130 bars and restaurants and 30 brothels. Our guide told us that most people ate lunch at restaurants, but had dinner at home. Not sure where/when they conducted their sex. Apparently much of it at the brothels. Probably 20% of the tour was conducted in the so called red light district. There were several families on the tour, and it was amusing to watch the Moms explain to their children about "red light district"! Here are a couple of shots from the red light area. For signage, the ancient cities used representations of the activity in the business. So, for brothels, a large, stone penis was hung from the doorway. I believe this particular brothel was called "stubs" (not to confused with the outstanding music/bbq venue in Austin!):
And here was a bed from inside one of the brothels. Just does not look very comfortable....It does explain some of the hard beds we have encountered while in Italy!
Here are a couple of shots from the more prosaic parts of the tour:
All in all, an interesting tour.
Tonight we had an outstanding dinner at a gourmet like restaurant in Sorrento. Really a terrific meal in an outstanding setting.
In the morning, we take the train to Naples. We will explore Naples tomorrow, including an excellenct history museum we have read about. Then on Monday morning, we take the train from Naples to Lake Como, via Milan.
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