The Disaster of Pompeii: Our Trip There, not the History

Okay, okay, the trip there wasn't quite a "disaster", but it was stressful and hectic. Late Saturday night Rachelle and I decided to plan our trip to Pompeii for the next day. We haven't really done any planning or scheduling this whole trip and everything always managed to work out, but we have since discovered that when we do plan, it never works as we intended.

Pompeii is about 2.5 hours from Rome so we needed to book a train ride to Naples and then another one from Naples to Pompeii, which is only about 30 minutes away. We then needed to book our return train home from Naples to Rome. These tickets were slightly more expensive, especially since we were used to paying only a few Euro per ticket. We had it planned that we would take the metro (which is equivalent to the subway) from our apartment to the train station. There was a metro station fairly close to our apartment so we headed over there with high hopes as we had gotten an early start to the day. We walked down a bunch of stairs and continued on to take the escalators down very far and realized no one else was down there. And I mean not ONE person. So Rachelle went down the rest of the way by herself to see what the deal was, and apparently the Metro was not running that day from where we were. We tried to get some bus information so we could hop on one that could take us to the train station, but the signs made no sense, and as we waited and waited for one to pull up we got impatient and decided we would just take a taxi. Rachelle was going to use her phone to try and call a taxi place to have them pick us up, but her phone was back at the apartment. We turned around and went back to where we thought our apartment was and realized NOTHING looked familiar and we had no idea where we were. After going in multiple circles we finally realized we came up from the Metro on the opposite side of the street. We then found the apartment, where I did an internet search for nearby taxi places and their phone numbers. We called a couple with no success. Our hearts started to beat slightly faster out of panic since we were running out of time to catch our scheduled train, but Rachelle turned her brain on and called the owner of the apartment to see if he had taxi information. He told us there was a taxi stop close by where several taxis sat and waited. We attempted to follow his directions to this stop when we noticed there were multiple taxis right across the street and down not even a full block from our apartment that we didn't see before. Regardless, we were happy once we sat in one and was on our way to the station.

On the train, Haylee started to get hungry and since we had no snacks and it was a 2 hour ride, Rachelle decided to buy a couple sandwiches from a guy who walks by selling stuff. He came to our seats and she asked for her food and drinks and the guy continued to hand her more and more sandwiches and more and more drinks. We were all a little confused, but didn't speak up. She then hands him a 50, because that was all we had, he looks at it, then pulls out 2 more sandwiches and hands her 2 more bottles of water and gives her a 10 back. Then he quickly walks off. She looks at me with about 7 sandwiches and 5 drinks all around her and says, "I just paid 40 Euro for lunch". We were both in shock, and pretty dang confused. But it was already done, so we couldn't change anything and just decided to eat up.

When we arrived in Naples station, we went up to the electronic ticket booth to find our next train and buy the ticket. We checked the schedule the night before and knew one would be leaving fairly soon, but we had zero success finding it. Again confused, we turned around and slowly walked away not knowing what to do. Seconds later, a random guy comes up to us saying something like "you going to Pompeii? You take subway. Come, come, I show you!" So he walks us through the station down to where the Metro was while waving and saying 'hi' to random people working at various stores. We looked at each other and said "well, it seems like he knows everyone, so he must be okay". He takes us to the ticket counter and tells the guy what we need. I'm pulling out my cash, which was also a 50, when Rachelle says, "is this a 2-way or just one?" The guy says one, and the ticket counter guys asks for them back so he could change them. As he does this, I slide my 50 under the window to pay for them, when the guy "helping" us takes it instead. Yes, the whole time I felt very uncomfortable, and this was when I really started to worry. We get our 2-way tickets and the man gives me back my change of 2 20's. The "helping" guy slides one of the 20's back under the counter, speaking Italian, and asks for 2 10's instead. When he is given the change, he hands me my 30, and keeps one of the 10's for himself. I asked him what he was doing and to give it back. He says "no, no, because I help you and show you. No problem, I take." The ticket counter guys are raising their voices still speaking Italian and the other man is slightly arguing back. I reflected back to Rachelle's ripoff lunch moment no less than an hour earlier, and refused to be scamed twice in the same day. So, very unlike me, I grab the 10 out of his hands and say, "NO! We appreciate your help, but you cant have this." He gets very angry at me and the ticket counter guys and then storms off. I couldn't believe I had just stood up to another scam artist trying to steal from 2 woman tourists. How exciting!

The rest of the way to Pompeii was a cakewalk. We bought a travel guide from a booth outside the exhibit for 6 Euro... which was originally 15 Euro, but Rachelle talked the price down. Go Rachelle!!! Once we finally got into the city we realized how huge it actually was. The streets were made or very large rocks making it impossible to push the stroller on. This caused much frustration throughout the day, but then decided to leave it behind and just let the girls walk.

It was unbelievable to me how much of the city was left, and how much was actually still intact. When we got to an area where multiple body casts were it affected me pretty heavily. There was one of a dog upside down and scrunched up in a ball. It all became so real and was incredibly clear how intense the volcano eruption really was, it almost brought tears to my eyes. The roads even had indents in them from where the wheels on their carts wore into them. It was so evident that people lived there over 2 thousand of years ago and that their civilization just ended in an instant.








After a way too expensive lunch at their cafeteria, we wanted to make our way to the oldest amphitheater in the world. Since Rachelle had declared me as the navitron woman, she had high hopes that I would do the same for this city as well. Unfortunately the maps all had street names, yet the city had no street signs, which made it darn near impossible to navigate through. We walked down a super long road that lead to the outskirts of the city. I noticed a sign with a map at the top of the hill and was certain after examining it that we needed to go left to make it to the amphitheater. And I mean absolutely certain. It was a long walk before we would actually find another entrance to the city, and I was so excited to turn the corner and see this huge amphitheater. Well, there was no amphitheater, but a new road back into the city. We walked on down, realizing we were out of time and just needed to get back to the entrance of the city so we could leave for the Metro station. I accepted the fact I wasnt going to see it, along with another main room I wanted to visit. We then realized we somehow made it back on the same long road we originally took and had just taken and 40 minute, pointless circle around the city. How awesome is that!

We got back to the Metro, took it to the train station and were excited we actually arrived early, so perhaps we could get some food. We checked the screens to find our platform where it says that our train was delayed 10 minutes. Okay, that's cool, just a bit more time to eat. Well, it then went to 20 minutes delayed, then 40 min, then 85 min, then 100! We were in total shock and just wanted to get home to get some good sleep! No trains we coming in, and none were going out. The stations was jamed packed with people, 80% of which were smoking, some even directly under a No Smoking sign! No one working at the station could tells us why everything was delayed, mostly because they couldn't speak English. It seemed like our train delay was stuck at 100 min for about 20 more min when it finally showed "Platform: 4PG". We didn't know what the "PG" was for but decided to walk to the normal platform 4. There were no trains over there, and really no people either. We found a guy who worked there and asked where to go and he told us to go back down to the subway. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? We ran across the station, down to the subway, found the train to Rome and jumped on without checking which car we were on to find our seats... we didn't want to risk it leaving as we stood right next to it. Turns out, this train was not really our train and our seats were already taken, but this train was indeed going to Rome, so we didn't care and decided to sit in the 5x5 foot hallway that had no AC, in between the cars for the 2.5 hour ride back. Turns out, the whole reason for our trains all being delayed was because the workers were all on strike. Oh the timing. How perfect.

When we arrived back at our train station in Rome we had to wait about 15 more min to get on a taxi because it was so late that was all we could really take to get home. We finally arrived back at our apartment after 1:30am, but we were home!

All in all, it was an entertaining adventure and it taught us a lot about the transportation systems in Rome, which came in handy in the coming days. I loved Pompeii but definitely need to return to see the whole other half of the city we didn't get the chance to explore... yes, because of my pointless circle I was certain would lead us to the amphitheater.