A Ren Fest & Mt. Doom

My valuable lesson for the weekend – sometimes your plans go astray, but it can work out for the best. I had a grand plan to spend this past weekend in Florence, the Renaissance capital of Italy, so I hopped on a train northbound early on Saturday morning, just glad to escape Naples. It’s a 3 hour trip on the ‘luxurious’ fast train via Rome. I was really excited – I had even taken out the Rick Steves Florence guidebook from the base’s library. However, as soon as I stepped off the train and started walking to my first tourist destination, I realized that the nagging feeling in the back of mind like I forgot something was spot on – I left my passport in Naples! That ruled out an overnight stay in Florence. I thought about finding some sketchy hotel that might not ask questions, but – don’t worry Mom – decided against it immediately. Afraid that I would get stranded without a bed for the night, I ran back to the train station to check the schedule and buy a return ticket to Naples. 6:50 – that allowed me a 6 hour tour of Florence.

I hit the highlights you don’t need a ticket to view – the Duomo, Pontevecchio, the Medici Chapels – and spent most of my dwindling hours wandering the streets and window/tent shopping (there was a large outdoor market). I was too upset with myself for forgetting my passport to seriously shop though.

At one point, I found myself suddenly in the middle of a Palestinian solidarity rally, of all things. I couldn’t really make out the Italian chanting or posters, but I think it had to do with Israel’s settlement expansion in the West Bank.

Other than that, the day was pretty uneventful, but enjoyable. My biggest regret is that I missed “David.” However, I am starting to get museum-ed out so my disappointment is not too acute.

Given the semi-failure of my Florence trip, I was determined to stay away from base as much as possible on Sunday. I promised myself that if the weather was nice, I would go to Mt. Vesuvius. Lo and behold! I woke up to a perfect, sunny morning (okay, so there were a few clouds). To get to Vesuvius, I took the same train I took to Pompeii, except I disembarked a few stops before that at Ercolano, which also hosts the ruins of Herculaneum (like Pompeii destroyed – and preserved – by the 79AD eruption). While waiting for the bus that shuttles you three-quarters of the way up the summit, I met some nice Canadian ladies. We had plenty of time to chat since the bus manager – not the most pleasant man – wanted to wait an hour to get a larger number of tourists. One Canadian, Sarah, was actually living in Hong Kong with her pilot husband, who was the brother of the second Canadian, Jeanette. Jeanette works in the Arctic for a mining company – who better to see Vesuvius with than a geologist! It was a very pleasant trip with the friendly Canadians; traveling solo is difficult, especially when you want to share exclamations of wonder at famous landmarks. As far as landmarks go, Vesuvius rocks (ugh) – it looks so unassuming, but if you think about the destruction you’ve seen at Pompeii, you start to get a bit nervous. At least I did. Also, with clouds swirling about and into the crater, it gave me a really eerie feeling. Sad to admit it, but the most thrilling part of the Mt. Vesuvius experience was actually the bus ride up and down along a narrow, winding road, which sure looked to be one way, but ended up being two.