IC London...I See France

11 March 2007

Pompeii: Home of Spirit Guides (New Entry #3)

Apparently, I am the only person in the world that didn't know that Pompeii was a city completely buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and preserved perfectly and then accidently discovered a few hundred years ago. All the same, my lack of knowledge made it all the more exciting when I got there and found out.

Monday, Meg, Erin, Paddy and I took a train through Naples to Pompeii to spend the day. The town was cute, made all the better by the Italian donut I purchased on the way to the ruins. We were greeted with a dog that resembled a young fox, and I dubbed him our spirit guide. We walked along the necropolis to begin where Erin explored the inside of a pitch-black mausoleum. I, on the other hand, stayed safely outside and sent her in with my camera in case there was something cool inside. Turns out, not so much, but most importantly, no dead people. We attempted to use the map we had, but it wasn't the most accurate thing so we just wandered and got lost a lot. Our spirit guide may have been sick and got really tired, so we lost him after about 40 minutes, which in my opinion, contributed to our lack of luck finding things. But perhaps not.

Everything was amazing. Mount Vesuvius loomed in the background ominously as we saw both the little and big theatres, the forum, the ampitheatre, the gymnasium, the brothel, shops and houses, gardens, paintings, statues, what could have been advertisements, and so much more. The crosswalks in Pompeii were raised higher than the road because that is supposed to be where the waste flowed and we pulled an Abbey Road shot on one of them. Pompeii had a lot of larger-than-life aloe plants that could have made comfy chairs if they weren't so pokey. Trying to get out, we got super lost and took a tour of the fields of Pompeii before finding our way again.

We were followed through the town by a small pack of spirit guides, some of which followed us into a pastry shop, all of which were adorable. One in particular led us all the way through the square to the train station and sat with us as we waited for the train. He was cute.

For some reason, our train to Naples took an unexplained break for almost an hour in the middle of nowhere. We got a nice picture of the sunset over the water and had a photo shoot of our range of emotions during the waiting. Otherwise, it wasn't much fun. We finally got back to Rome from Naples around 11:30. Sleep was required for the early wake-up call on Tuesday.

2 Comments:

  • So, 'spirit guides' run pretty freely there and are even allowed in the shops?? Very interesting.

    I won't tell the two we have here that though.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:09 PM  

  • Are Italian donuts any differant that Waltz donuts??

    Love,

    Dad

    By Blogger Dad Krzyske, at 8:35 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home