Pompei & Positano (leave me here)

Pompei

Pompei

Body of Stone

Yesterday we took a train to the city of Pompei. Upon getting off the train, we saw this huge stone structure on our left which I thought to take a picture of and ask some tourists what I was looking at. They had a few laughs upon informing us that this was the city of Pompeii that we had to buy tickets for. We spend about 3 hours walking around Pompei, which is ancient ruins made of stone that existed around 300 B.C. and existed until 79 A.D. which at the time, makes it older than the United States is now! We saw all of the old living quarters, trying to imagine what life was like back then and picturing what everything standing today was actually used for so long ago. We opted out of the audio tour and personal tour, and forgot to get a map of the site, so we spent over 3 hours walking around aimlessly, exploring all the different parts of the archaeological site, including the bodies that were turned to stone. It was such a neat experience!

Positano

Positano

Today we took a ferry from Sorrento to Positano (near Amalfi Coast)! It took about 45 minutes and was actually a pretty dangerous ride, the swells of the Mediterranean were very close to 5 ft, which is their cutoff wave size for canceling the ferry for safety. Positano was such a beautiful town where we were amazed by both the shopping (linen especially) as well as the architecture involved with building the island. We shopped a lot and ate a local restaurant which was recommended to us by a young boy working an art shop. The restaurant was called Da Vincenzo, named after dad's middle name, Vincent. We started outside, enjoying a cuttlefish and arugula salad while overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and beautiful Positano). It got too chilly after that, so we moved inside to enjoy our appetizers of lobster linguini and pan seared local fish of the day. It was so delicious to enjoy seafood in such a way with such a magnificent view! We tried the lottery for our second time, with the guarantee that if we won, we would buy a house right then and there! We didn't have much success, which of course didn't help my awe of the linen found in town and how delicately beautiful it all was. On the way back down from town, we accidentally found ourselves in the middle of a funeral procession outside the beautiful Church of Santa Maria Assunta. Positano is one of our favorite places we've been to and found out Posso Posso means 'leave me here', which is where the town name derived from.

Giovanni and I on the bongos!

    Around 5:00, we boarded the ferry back to Sorrento, went back to relax at the hotel and headed out for dinner around 8:30 at the restaurant we've been trying to go to since our first night here, a few blocks down from the hotel. They had live Italian music and the food was absolutely amazing. I even got to play the bongos with the pizza boy and lead singer! For dinner, I orederd the linguini with saffron, clams, and zucchini, and dad ate eggplant parmesan. They served flatbread and house wine in a carafe the size of a double bottle! To top if off, they brought a huge pitcher of their Lemoncello, made locally in the restaurant, to aid our digestive system and the meal. It was so wonderful that we told them we would be back for lunch tomorrow! The video to your left is of a customer singing with the local italian band, he was wonderful, and after he finished, I went and played the bongos with Giovanni, the pizza boy!

Ciao,
Tarra