Campania was BEAUTIFUL! We left Wednesday and went south of Rome to Paestum. It was so amazing because we saw when I think were the only Greek Temples in all of Italy. It was soooo amazing to see them up close and I was so impressed at how well most of the 3 temples were so well preserved. We basically just looked around for a while and had free time to just sketch and hang out. The weather was actually pretty good, albeit a bit rainy at times, but we were able to get some sketching in. We also got a really good group picture of the whole class in front of one of the temples. We also got a tour in the museum there by Saskia (who I LOVE by the way) which was so interesting because we saw all of the artifacts that they uncovered at the site, like coffins, and clay pots and sculptures that belonged on the temples themselves. When we got out of the museum it was raining so a couple of us went and grabbed some gelato while we waited for the other group to finish.
We left Paestum and stopped at the Villa Oplontis which was a really well preserved ancient villa. We got guided tours and had time to sketch, but I mostly wandered around and took photos. It was SO huge and amazing that someone had lived there. One of the coolest parts was that only half of it was able to be seen because it had been excavated from having been covered in lava when Mount Vesuvius erupted. The other half was under a modern road so they didn't excavate it but we got to see the cut part that showed the layers of the lava. It was soooo cool.
We then left to go to the town where our hotel was located. It was right on the coast and could have been really fun, but it was so cold and misty the whole time we were there. The hotel didn't even have the heat on when we first got there! Once we had settled in, some of us left to go to find a store where we could get some snacks and wine. Once we got back we had a nice dinner in the hotel restaurant, where we all sat and chatted and had an amazing meal. It was homemade by the owner and his son. We then all went to our rooms and hung out together until it was time to go to sleep.
In the morning we traveled to Herculaneum which was so incredible. We checked into a beautiful hotel (which we got to stay in because the town of Herculaneum was pretty ghetto). Once we had dropped our stuff off, we went to the ruins. It was a lot like Pompeii where there was a whole city that was preserved when Mount Vesuvius erupted. The weather was probably the best we've had yet. It was warm out and sunny and we were right on the ocean, it was amazing. We could see Capri from where we were in Herculaneum. We basically spent the day walking around the ruins and got some tours from Saskia and a woman who worked at the ruins. It was so much fun. We saw tons of interesting things, and took all kinds of pictures. That night we had dinner at a pizza place that we found near the ruins. It was delicious homemade brick oven pizza. We then stopped for some wine on the way home and hung out at the hotel for the night.
The next day we stopped at a couple of different places on the way to Naples. We went to a cave of a siren, it was soo eery and amazing that they were able to carve that cave out. We also stopped at a water sistern that was amazing. It was basically a man-made cave where water was kept. We stopped for lunch where there was a small Colosseum and a couple of us snuck down below the floor to see underneath the stadium. It was so much fun...it was really scary because we took these really dark stairs down but it was soooo worth it because it was so beautiful. There was a serious of arcades and old column ruins and we could see above through grates in the ceiling. When we went back above to the ground area, many of our classmates were hanging out on the colosseum steps, but then a lady came and yelled at everyone, saying they were all nuts and in huge trouble, etc (in Italian, but Saskia translated for us). It was pretty funny. We then went to a volcano but it was awful because it smelled like sulfur and i was gagging the whole time. It was fun watching some of the boys climb up the side of the crater though.
We were then taken to Naples where we were going to catch the ferry to Sicily.....but I'll have to talk about that next time since I have to get ready for classes tomorrow!
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