So this previous weekend the students went on a three day visit to Sorrento, Pompei and Naples! Accompanied by Marta, Alexandra and Lorenzo we were bussed down to Sorrento where we stayed in a wonderful little hotel that even served breakfast!!
The first night there we adjusted to the warmth of this southern city and enjoyed a lemon-cello tasting at a local shop. It was a relative early night as we all had to up and ready to go by 8:30 so that we could get to Pompei nice and early!
Pomei was so wonderful! it was not at all what most people expected, it is quite excavated and huge!! and most of Pomei is not even excavated yet. There was plenty of time given to the students to take pictures of the site as well as a wonderful explanation of the city and its history by our own professor, Lorenzo. The tour of Pompei lasted about three hours and then we all went out to Pizza together. After pizza the group split up, most of the students went back to Sorrento so that they could spend the remainder of the afternoon in Capri. Which unfortunately did not work out because the last boat back to Sorrento would leave Capri after they would only have been on Capri for 45 minutes. So they enjoyed the cute side streets filled with shopping and the beautiful port in Sorrento. Two students decided against going to Capri preferring to go climb Mount Vesuvius. We all met up again for dinner at a cute little restaurant that is right on the water and enjoyed some fresh seafood Sorrento style.
The third and final day was our Naples day! We were met by the tour guide in Sorrento and enjoyed her commentary all the way to Naples, including her adorable surprise at seeing a Ferrari. In Naples we got a brief overview of the city and its many churches, and even got some shopping done. And to our luck it was Palm Sunday so we got to see the processions that occur during this holiday, and also we saw lots of olive branches being blessed, as they use olive branches instead of palm leaves. Then we enjoyed the best meal ever at the restaurant that invented the margarita pizza, and we enjoyed this meal while being serenaded by a wonderful guitar singer. And to top this wonderful meal off we stopped at a very suave patisserie where you could get the traditional Baba or the famous Canoli.
And needless to say everyone passed out promptly on the bus ride back to Florence. All in all, the best trip ever!!!!