The Ruins of Pompeii (and how they nearly ruined me)

sunravelme (62)in #travel • 7 years ago (edited)

I visited the ruins of Pompeii, and my biggest regret was not getting a tour guide, or the audio guide, or downloading one of the free podcasts, or anything.... This would have been a cool experience if I'd just known what I was looking at. Don't be like me- get a guide. I tried to listen to guides as they went by, but it was hard to hear them, and I was embarrassed listening to someone who I didn't pay (#retireddocent).

My husband and I traveled from Paris to the airport in Naples, stayed the night at Hotel Martini in Naples, then moved on to Pompeii. Beware, the man running Hotel Martini that night tried to pocket my passport, and without my husbands quick thinking, would have been successful. Be sure to get your passport back!

Everything outside of Pompeii felt like a tourist trap, including a Gelato place that told us one price, then as we went to pay would raise the price on us a few more Euros until we paid 9 euros for 2 small cups of gelato and a can of Coke. Pack food with you before going to Pompeii.

Notice the lack of baggage? We went expecting to carry all our gear, but there was a free baggage check.

Also, this can be confusing, as there is a Pompei, with one I, that is the town, and Pompeii, with two i's, which are the ruins.

We were still working on figuring out the buses at this point, and all the locals told us that it was better to take the train from Pompei to Sorrento. Google told us that it was an hour less if we did the whole trip by bus. However, we couldn't figure out the system and hadn't quite worked out the language barrier at this point in the trip. We have up and took the train to Sorrento, which ended up being easy and relaxing, except for the bus ride from Sorrento to Amalfi. I'll save that story for the next post.