Destination: France & Italy
Duration: 15 Days 15 Nights (Sep 02~Sep 17, 2014)
Day 11: From Brothel in Pompeii to Conquering Mt
Vesuvius
We are leaving from Rome to Napoli Centrale in Frecciarossa
9501 at 8.45am to catch our day tour at 10.30am at the left side of the train
station. As usual, we bought the train ticket from Trenitalia (link) at EUR19/pax for
standard seat – no more premium seat as it was more expensive for this leg.
Thankfully we managed to get our beloved seats of 17C & 17D. Wonder why
these are the good seat? Refer to this (link)!!!
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| Sammy is ready for another adventure! |
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| Leaving Rome... |
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| At Roma Termini |
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| Waiting for our Train! |
We booked our day tour (Pompeii & Mt Vesuvius) directly
from Project Napoli (link)
as they were the day tour company that responded to our inquiry on our luggage storage
immediately. Since we were leaving Rome and would only checked in our hotel in
Sorrento after the day tour, it was important for us on how to store our
luggage during the day tour and Project Napoli promised to guide our luggage
during our day tour without extra charges and sent us to the nearest train
station to get to Sorrento after the tour.
Our meeting point was at the left side of Napoli Centrale
– just in front of STAR hotel Terminus. The traffic there seemed to be total
chaos but we managed to get picked up without incident. Our 1st stop
was Pompeii – the ancient city which was buried under tons of volcanic ashes
from Mt Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 A.D. Or you may know this place from that
cheesy Kiefer Sutherland’s movie “Pompeii”. =P
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| Grab some Foods at the random bakery beside STAR Terminus Hotel |
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| It's type of a Sweet Bun |
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| Chaotic Traffic at Meeting Point |
Our tour guide – Andrea was extremely humourous and given
us information on the site with plenty of jokes. For example, did you know that
the resident in Pompeii get to have free spa and bath from 1-4pm everyday?
Darn! I want to plead this case to labor union! This is totally unfair!
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| Entering Pompeii Site |
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| Ancient Building near the Entrance |
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| The Forum |
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| Random Column |
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| At the Amphitheatre |
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| Round & Round in the Theater |
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| Agora or houses? |
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| Kitchen |
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| At the Main Street |
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| This is how they let carriage go through |
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| Bath & Spa Area |
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| How Grand huh? Free Bath & Spa everyday! |
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| Steam room? |
Of course another interesting thing was prostitution was
completely legal in Pompeii back in the day. So if you were a merchant from out
of town who did not speak the language in Pompeii but desperately needed some…
Ahem… *release*, what should you do? Well, just follow the *SIGN*!!! But how
would you communicate with the lady in hiring on what you need? Don’t fret, there
was a ”Menu” on the wall! You could’ve just point!!! LOL!!!
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| Let's go to somewhere "Private" |
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| Menu on the wall! |
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| Hmm... 18SX!!! |
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| *facepalm* |
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| Free Water |
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| "Road Sign" to the Brothel |
Anyway, apparently doggie’s life was more precious than
human as most visitors were saddened by the doggie’s body rather than the
pregnant lady’s beside. In case you didn’t know, most residents in Pompeii were
buried alive by the ashes during the eruption and their bodies were perfectly
preserved underneath it. In fact, Pompeii was only excavated in 1748.
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| At Piazza |
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| Body of a Dog |
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| Body of a Man |
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| Let's take a picture |
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| Temple of Apollo |
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| The Famous Statue |
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| Overlooking the "Seaport" in old time |
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| Look at how well preserved it is! |
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| Goodbye Pompeii |
After Pompeii site, we had our lunch at a local
restaurant (included in the daytour) nearby. We had the meat and salad before
continued on our journey to Mt Vesuvius. Of course as Andrea was saying, please
get to the toilet before that else you would have to do your “business” at the
crater whereby other tourists would take pictures and post in Facebook. =P
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| At Lunch |
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| Salad & Drinks |
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| Meat with Gravy |
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| Free wifi? |
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| Nice Grapevine on top though |
The road to Mt Vesuvius was extremely narrow and it was
really scary when there were 2 buses at opposite side. It seemed like the bus
would fell into the cliff whenever that happened. *sweat* Anyway, we reached
the stop of Mt Vesuvius at 1000m safely and started our ‘hike’. Our tour
members were disappearing fast and we were left panting and catching our breath
behind. We did take the opportunity to take lots of pictures though and I guess
it was a blessing as the weather quickly turned foggy.
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| On the way to Mt Vesuvius |
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| I think i'm getting a heart attack |
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| At the Beginning of our Steep Journey |
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| Bay of Naples |
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| Can't really see the Bay from in picture though |
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| Tired with Hiking? Stop and take a picture! |
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| Getting Higher - see the road we went through earlier? |
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| Are we there yet? |
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| WHAT?!!! Still not there yet? |
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| Still long long way to go! |
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| Can i give up? |
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| Look at the uneven dirt! It's not easy ok! |
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| Fog is coming to join the party! |
Once we reached the top at 1200m, we were basically
engulfed in the fog and we couldn’t even see the crater clearly. Guess my curse
of foggy Mountain View continued after Mt Fuji (link), Hakone (link) and Mt
Merapi (link). *sigh*
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| Can't even see clearly |
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| Thankfully we already took some picture earlier! |
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| Near the Summit? |
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| The Crater |
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| Imagine Lava Pouring out from this! |
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| Strong Wind too! |
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| Can't go further after this point |
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| This was what we are supposed to see!!! |
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| Just Keep Walking! |
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| Why am i even here? *facepalm* |
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| Going Down! |
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| Stairway to Heaven? |
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| I thought i'm in Heaven! |
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| Some Rock at the Summit |
Our day tour officially ended after Mt Vesuvius hike and
Andrea dropped us near the Torre del Greco Train Station. We were kind of lost
when we were looking for the train station but thankfully some local housewives
with babies and all led us to the station! How awesome was that? =P
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| Found the Station! |
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| Hmm.. We don't understand a word.. |
Torre del Greco Train Station was quite old with very
less indication signs which made us kind of nervous on catching the wrong
train. As luck would have it, we got on the correct Circumvesuviana Trains and
reached Sorrento without incident at around 6.40pm. =)
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| Finally Arriving in Sorrento! |
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| Hotel Nice Bathroom |
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| Hotel Nice Bedroom with Balcony |
Hotel Nice was basically a less than 5minutes walk from
the train station and easy to find. We quickly checked in and rested a while
before heading out to get from groceries. It seemed like Limoncello was big
here in Sorrento thus we bought one with 30% alcohol content. *sweat*
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| Lots of liquids & fruits & LIMONCELLO!!! |
It was already late by then thus we walked through Piazza
Tasso to get to Marina Grande to have a late dinner at Da Emilia Restaurant. We
ordered the Mixed Seafood Platter, Gnocchi with Tomato Sauce and half litre of
white wine. The food was extremely delicious – the best we’d eaten in our trip
and the price was really reasonable. Even the ‘tomato sauce’ along with the
Gnocchi was unlike anything we’d tried before. We finished all the sauce by
dipping bread on the plate as it was simply too good to waste it. We really
enjoyed the food, the ambience and the service here.
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| Piazza Tasso |
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| Walking through Tourist Street |
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| Sorrento is famous for its Lemons! |
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| Beautiful nightview at Marina Grande |
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| A Church at Marina Grande |
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| White Wine at Da Emilia |
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| Mixed Seafood Platter |
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| Gnocchi with Tomato Sauce - the sauce is divine!!! |
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| Dining at the seafront |
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| The View from our Table |
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| I just have to make a Collage of it =P |
The only downside? It was quite a walk from our hotel
thus we were ‘forced’ to burn off some calories after the meal to get back to
our hotel. Tomorrow would be another day tour for us to the dreamy Amalfi Coast.
Stay tuned!
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| Oh oh! Long way to walk with STAIRsss!!! |
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| Random Fountain |
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| Street of Sorrento |
Next Day (The Amazing Amalfi Coast Road Trip)
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