Day 8 - Naples, Italy

Naples, Italy. We are back in Italy and quite excitingly in the city where pizza originated. I know there are alot of cities & peoples who claim to have developed pizza but legend has it that Naples is the truly the birthplace of this favorite of almost everyone.

I spent the morning on a walking tour of the city. I visited San Gennaro's cathedral which is known for the blood of the patron saint of Naples and that it liquifyies 3 times a year. And when it does not liquify, catastrophies such as earthquakes occur. Sounds far out- very much so in fact - but believers claim the happenings to be true. A beautiful church.

After the church, I walked through the city and did some window shopping. The highlight of the morning was the stop at the authentic pizza restaurant. We arrived there at 11am.. were served wine, salad, pizza, coffee & dessert. We left at about 1pm. 2 hours for a meal... honestly too much downtime for me but the pizza was very delicious. It was simple, the crust, fresh sauce and a very minimal amount of cheese. A very different version of pizza compared to what you would get in the US. My opinion, I think the simpler version is the way to go!

In the afternoon, I visited Pompeii. Pompeii is an ancient Roman city that was buried in 79 AD during a catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The city buried under over 50 feet of ash from the volcano and remained submerged and preserved for over 1700 years when it was discovered (accidentally!) in the mid 18th century.

The ruins are amazingly preserved because of the ash and the site seems to extend forever. Walking through the ruins, you get an impressive picture of what life was like living in the first century. Simple things like grooves in the stone streets still show the ruts that chariot wheels carved out thousands of years ago. The ruins at Kusadasi were impressive but Pompeii is on another level as far as preservation. One other interesting find (see creepy picture of what looks like a human body) were the gaps in the ash found when the site was being excavated. In attempt to determine the cause of the voids, plaster was injected into the gaps and the result were casts of people and animals that had been trapped in the ash. Human remains had long since disappeared but the spaces in the ash helped identify where human and animals were left when the volcano erupted.


Mount Vesuvius is a mountain like many others and people live as close to it now as they did in the first century. Vesuvius is still an active volcano and due to erupt in the very near future. This reality however does not deter people from living so close to it and in the path of danger when that eruption inevitably occurs. My question is does that make real estate close to the mountain more expensive or cheap????