south field trip. (meaning the portion of the trip supervised by our professors)
NASTY NAPLES
we left from termini station in rome early thursday morning of october 1st. yup-this meant that my roommates and i made a very early morning trek to termini station. it was quite interesting to see rome at 6:30am. things were very calm and we saw the sunrise. we took a 2 hour train ride to naples (which has now been "dubbed"- "nasty naples.") we visited the archeological museum in naples, had lunch, and then trekked through the rough part of town to get to napoli centrale so that we could head to the next destination.
before we could get to the train station we experienced even more naples "wrath." we ended up finally getting on a bus to the train station because our professors finally figured out that we might miss our train if we didn't hurry. on the bus: various students had their "personal bubble's" popped, their pockets invaded, and their bags crushed because we were like sardines on that silly bus. the next issue we had in naples was because of the ticket system in europe. when you get on the bus there are machines where you must "validate" your ticket to prove that you paid for it and you have every right to be on that bus or train. well, because there were almost 40 design students on the bus plus 100 naples civilians there was no room to breathe, let alone get to a machine to validate out tickets. lots of people had validated their tickets, and its rare that policemen come on the bus to check, but on this day one decided to hop on and make some trouble. anyway- more things occurred, but to shorten the story my professor chris ended up paying a hefty fine. ouch. OH and we missed our train (but caught the next one).
first covered shopping center in naples
SORRENTO
once we finally arrived in sorrento we were pleasantly surprised by our hotel accommodations. the entrance was a canopy of kiwi and there were plants such as lemon and lime trees, and wild orchids growing right outside. our room was called margarita because all the rooms were named after flowers and our room even smelled like the flower. pretty cute. it was lovely to sleep in a clean bed and use nice clean towels. the breakfast was amazing as well!
ok- back to sorrento. our professors planned a great dinner for us a "the lemon tree" in sorrento on thursday evening. the entire restaurant was like a garden and the food was amazing. we had four lovely courses from antipasti to pasta, and sea-bass to lemon desert.
after dinner my professor pia surprised us by convincing a local discotheque to open its doors just for us. we were all very full from dinner but we couldn't pass up the opportunity to go dancing....with my professor! strobe lights and all- we enjoyed a night of grooving at the ironically named "hollywood in sorrento" discotheque.
HERUCULANEUM
early friday morning despite the rain we ventured to herculaneum. this city is near pompeii and was also covered by ash in 79 A.D. when mt. vesuvius erupted. there are acres of civilization that have been recovered. most of the remains are well preserved and we could see frescoes on the walls and brightly colored mosaics that are hundreds of years old. we also saw the remains of bodies that were struggling to escape. overall it was a fascinating but sad place to see.
SORRENTO.CAPRI (the portion of the trip on our own)
after herculaneum my five interior design roomates (laura, megan, tina, eek, and allison) and i headed back to sorrento for dinner. friday and saturday night we stayed at campeggio villaggio in a cabin for 9 euro a night. cheap, cold and damp!
the highlight of my travels so far is our day trip to the island of capri on saturday october 3rd. we took the ferry from sorrento to capri and had a day full of relaxation. right when we got off the ferry we were approached a nice italian fellow who offered us a day on his boat to float around the island, and he promised that we would be able to jump out and swim. after deliberation we decided to go with raffi and it was a splendid day. we saw multiple grattos, or caves that surround the island and we were able to swim and bask in the sun. the main gratto, the "blue gratto" was closed because the water was too rough, but since we were on a smaller boat we were able to go into some of the smaller caves instead.
later that night we lounged around our cabins and enjoyed more of sorrento. we trained back to rome on sunday and it was good to be back in our "rome home."
