My plan for today was to travel down to Vesuvius and climb it then head to Pompeii to explore the ruins. Unfortunately the weather was crap and the top of Vesuvius was covered in clouds. I headed straight for Pompeii instead. I made my way to the ruins and started wandering. The only thing I knew about the place was that the eruption in 79 AD wiped out the town. So as it turns out, what you see now is not original. When Pompeii was discovered in the 1700-1800's people started to rebuild the town. Then the town was bombed in the war and the town was destroyed. People began to rebuild after that and that is what you see. I don't know what is real and what is not. Are the paintings the real deal or a reproduction based on something else? I admit, my thoughts on the place changed when I discovered it wasn't the real ruins. Walking around you can go into some areas, followed by a security member and others are fenced off. Most are fenced off actually. The mosaic tile floors are nice (original?) and the marble kitchens were beautiful. Ancient purple seem to have an obsession with naked bodies. There were quite a few painting of naked men & women & upon googling painting of Pompeii, I found out that there were MANY erotic paintings discovered including sex with animals, threesomes, gay and a variety of positions. It seems to be a much more open topic back then tha than it is now. There was a white sculpture with a HUGE penis and a copper sculpture of a man with a big one too.
I find the main areas tourists visit and there I saw lots of urns and other recovered items. There are also the plaster casts of the bodies of a male, child & dog.
After a couple of hours I left and went back to Pompei (the town) and walked around. There is not much to see at all.
I went and waited at the train stain for my train back to Naples. While there a black man tried to make conversation which I tried to shut down. He left but when the train came he followed me into the train and sat behind me! I put headphones in and after a while he tried to get my attention. He said he was talking to me but I wasn't talking back. No shit, I've got noise cancelling headphones for a reason buddy! He said he likes to have friends everywhere. I told him I'm listening to music and ignored him. When we got to Naples I made sure I went three other way to him!! Creepy! He is an immigrant from Africa to Italy. I'm most definitely not interested in friends or whatever else he had in mind!
It was raining in Naples when I arrived. Three tourist info lady gave me a map & suggested some street to walk around & to ensure I watched my belongings closely. I very quickly discovered Naples is a very dirty, disgusting & busy place. I had wet feet very quickly and learned it isn't a touristy place. There were no souvenir shops or anything, just normal local shops. I walked around for an hr before heading back to the train station. I got Burger King as I was in desperate need of some comfort food and then got the train back to Rome.
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