Coastal Weekend: Pompeii and the train disaster

Sunday
June 13, 2004

The morning did come early. We made our boat my 7:00 and were in Pompeii by around 8 a.m. I was actually quite disappointed in the actual site. One tour guide was provided for all 90 of us, which doesn't make for a very detailed or educational tour. Note to self: get an audioguide next time. But the site, overall, was interesting to see and now at least I can say I have been there. Had I known there was a museum, however, I would have been there faster than you can say Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious :)

We caught the first train to Naples as soon as our tour was over in Pompeii and hung out at Platform 18, where Bruno told us to meet, for about 3 hours until our departure time. As time passed, more and more of our group showed up and waited at #18. Our train was scheduled to leave at around 3:38 or something.

It was 3:46 when one of our leaders ran over and yelled to all 90 of us that we were in fact
on the wrong platform and that we needed to get to platform 16 and that our train was leaving RIGHT NOW!! Can you imagine...the already crowded train station first of all being invaded by 90 college tourists and second of all being stampeded by 90 college tourists, backpacks and all, trying to get on the "right" train that literally closed its doors as we were running along side of it. Two of the guys in the group held the doors open while everyone piled into ONE already full car meant for about 40 people...at that point containing around 70 (some of us spread into other already full cars). We figured that we would stand until the first stop, after which we would be told where our reserved car was. Well, that didn't exactly happen. It turns out that we ended up getting on the wrong train. It was, thankfully, headed for the same place, but it was one on which we did NOT have reservations. We received the news that there was, in fact, no reserved car after the second stop when we came to the realization that we would be standing for the following 4.5 hours until we arrived in Florence. Thank you to our fearless leaders. Fortunately, my years of dance and gymnastics paid off. I was able to contort my body and wedge myself into a 2'x3' space underneath two seats back-to-back where I slept away about 2 hours of the train ride. I was awoken by an Italian stepping on my feet in, which were the only body parts sticking out into the aisle. We played games the rest of the ride, mind games I was supposed to figure out but didn't understand...:)

The train pulled into a train station around 7 p.m. and we all enjoyed a 25 minute walk back to our hotels.