Our Unexpected Trip to Solerno and Pompei

We debated a bit on what we wanted to do for Christmas. We weren't sure if we wanted to stay in Rome and leave Christmas Day or leave Christmas Eve and spend the whole day in the Almafi coast. We decided to leave on Christmas Eve, so we could spend Christmas Day relaxing. The day before, we checked the train times and found the route that we needed. We double checked everything because things change on Christmas Eve. Before we left Rome, we checked again. We checked with the train guy when we bought the tickets. There was going to be no troubles getting to Sorrento. So we thought. We first had to take a train to Naples, then switch to the Circumvensia (which is like a subway) to get to Sorrento. We got to Naples just fine. We went downstairs to catch the other train, and it had closed for the evening. We went to a ticket office and found out it closed at seven, even though the schedule online said that there was a train leaving at 9 for Sorrento on Christmas Eve. The ticket guy suggested we get on the train that went to Solerno, which was on the other end of the Almafi coast and we might have better luck getting to Sorrento there.

We hope back on the train and get to Solerno. The city was completely shut down. Not a soul. We weren't sure what to do since we had pre-booked and pre-paid for our hotel in Sorrento. We talked to a taxi who said he couldn't take us to Sorrento because he needed to watch a football game in 30 minutes. We called family and were having them help us find a hotel in Solerno, to no help. Gavin went running across to the one hotel we could see, directly across from the station. Luckily, they had a room open.

The view from our hotel room, overlooking the train station.

Across the street from this Christmas tree was a church that held Midnight Mass. I really enjoyed watching people walk to church at midnight and listening to the bells going off.


The next morning, we decided to try and get to Sorrento again. We talked to the ticket people and they told us we had two options. We could take a bus along the Almafi Coast to Sorrento, or we could take the train and switch to the Circumvensia in Pompei. We waited for the bus to come, but it never showed, so we ran to the train and hopped on. Once we got to Pompei, we were told that the other station was about 2 miles away.

Halfway there, we found a restaurant open, so we decided to stop and get lunch. The family sitting behind us hired a guy to sing them some folk songs during their meal. It felt a little like A Christmas Story when they are at the Chinese restaurant at the end.

Gavin spent a lot of the meal on the phone with Hotels.com trying to work something out.

We finally found the other train station and it is closed for the day.

We weren't sure what to do. There was a camping place nearby that was open and the guy there had a friend that ran a car hire and was willing to drive us. He wanted to charge us a lot more than the original agrees upon price, but we were able to talk him back down a little.

Our first view of the Almafi Coast.

Once we got to the hotel in Sorrento, we had to wait 20 minutes in the lobby because someone had to take us to our room. We kept telling the lady we could find it ourselves, but she told us we were staying off property. The guy finally shows and we walk 20 minutes to the outskirts of town. They had put us in their "annex", which was a town house. We hated it out there. There was no phone, no clock, no blankets, no hot water, no television, nothing. We were all alone and had no way to contact anyone should something go wrong. We walked the 20 minutes back to the hotel to complain, but there was really nothing we could do about it.

Before heading back to our room, we walked around the city center. When we first got into town, the streets were pretty empty. However, at night, everyone came out and went to the coffee and pastry shops. It was crazy. The streets were so crowded with everyone chatting and having fun.

Here's the main living room to the house. I think there was 4 other rooms than ours.

Our room. One of the main reasons Gavin chose this hotel was that it was close to the train station and the city center. Also, that it had really cool, modern decor. As you can see, that is not what we got.

To say the least, our Christmas in Italy wasn't quite what we expected. :)

The Vatican

On Christmas Eve, we went and toured the Vatican.

The view from our hotel room. You can see the Colosseum in the top middle.

While we were walking from the subway to Vatican City, we were approached by several sales people for tour companies. One guy followed us for a few blocks saying that the Vatican closed in 30 minutes and there was no way we were going to make it in before it closed so we better use their tour so we could go to the front of the line. Since we were so sick of pushy sales people, so we decided to risk it. When we got to the Vatican, we found that it actually closed several hours later and there was almost no line to get in.

St. Peter's Basilica.

You can see them setting up for the Midnight Mass Broadcast.

I loved all of the statues along the roof.

The Swiss Guard.

Looking up at the Pope's Balcony.

The hallway leading in to St. Peter's Basilica.

The doorway in.

It was very grand and beautiful.

Michelangelo's Pieta.

The dome designed by Michelangelo.

The Central Piers. According to the tour book we had, the Central Piers holds St. Peter's Basilica relics, which are the spear of St. Longinius, which is the sword that stab Christ on the cross, St. Veronica's handkerchief bearing Christ's face, and a piece of the cross.

The Baldacchino, which was done by Bernini.

The Statue of St. Peter.

The Tomb of John XXII

The marble wall listing all of the Popes.

The Monument to Pope Pius VII.

There was a giant nativity set up inside.

One of the Central Piers, where the relics are supposed to be.

Since the Vatican is considered it's own country, it had it's own post office. We mailed some post cards to our family from there.

It started raining a little while we were there. There is a really funny story about our umbrella. We had brought one with us to Europe, but it got stolen in Venice. When we were in Florence, it started raining and immediately this lady started pushing her umbrellas on us. Usually we just ignored them and walked on, but Gavin made the mistake this time of stopping. While she was shouting different prices at Gavin, this other lady pushes her way up to Gavin trying to sell her umbrellas. Gavin kept backing up and they kept pushing towards him. The first lady was trying to sell Gavin one umbrella and he kept saying that we needed to. Gavin pulled out some change and the second lady grabbed the change and shoved two umbrellas at him before the first lady could do anything. The first lady was so upset and started yelling at the second lady and hitting her over the head with her umbrellas. It was the craziest thing. Gavin's umbrellas got ruined in the rainstorm the night before, so we were only left with mine. Thus Gavin with the old lady umbrella.

To get to the Vatican Museum, you need to leave St. Peter's Square and walk around to the other side of the Vatican.

The Vatican Museum.

The Raphael Rooms, which were the reception rooms originally intended for Pope Julius II.

The Room of the Signature, which is one of the Raphael Rooms.

Raphael's Fire in the Borgo

Raphael's the Battle of Ostia.

Raphael's The School of Athens.

There was also a modern art exhibit. This was my favorite piece.

The hallway approaching the Sistine Chapel.

There were no pictures allowed in the Sistine Chapel, due to it's sacred nature (it was surprising how many people still took pictures in front of the guards), but here is a panaroma of the ceiling's art work that I found online. The Chapel is very small, and much more intimate that we were expecting. The paintings are beautiful. This was definently a highlight of our trip.

Everything in the museum was absolutely beautiful. I loved seeing all of the art.

The Last Supper wasn't on display because they were repairing the windows in the room or something. We were really disappointed.

A Bernini angel.

The famous spiral staircase.

After the Vatican, Gavin wanted to check out the Pantheon in the rain storm. While walking there, I may or may not have threatened to shove my umbrella up a street sales person's butt (he followed us for about ten minutes. I had lost my patience with him. He left us alone after that).

There is something about monuemnts at night. They usually look so much prettier.

We had Christmas Eve dinner at this little cafe near the Pantheon, which was delicious. We grabbed a taxi to take us to the hotel, which was a little terrifying. Those Rome drivers are something else.