Day 29: POMPEII and Worst Day of Our Trip

We started off the day super early by hopping on a train to Naples and then on to Pompeii.

Since it was a Sunday, the town was pretty empty, but we asked around and found out we just need to walk 2 kms to find the main part of Pompeii that was preserved.  The walk wasn’t that bad and we got to the little entrance, got our tickets, and they gave us little brochures that explained everything.  We walked around for hours and it was super interesting.

MT. VESUVIUS.

Now the real story starts…

We knew the trains back to Naples came twice every hour. On our walk back, we found a little buy one get one free coupon book for McDonalds. I, of course, picked it up and kept it, since I go to McDonalds in every country I’ve been to.

We were walking up to the train station and realized our train was there. We ran under the tracks to get to our track. Forrest pulled the handle, the door was jammed, and it pulled away. Not too bad though, right, because another train would be there in less than a hour…

Nope, not at four o’clock…

Four o’clock HAD to be the weird hour.

So we go to this little restaurant next to the train station and ask about buses. Oh wait, it’s Sunday…the buses dont run on Sunday.

But it’s okay because we can still make it to Naples on time if we get on the next train.  So Forrest decided to get a gatorade.

Whoops. We’re out of cash… SERIOUSLY!

So Forrest runs to the ATM while I stay at the restaurant. By that point, the guy at the restaurant said “just have a drink.”

Instead we decided to get one of each dessert they had :) Alright, so I go to check the train board to see what platform we need to go to at five. Okay. Platform 1.

So we go there and wait and hop on a train. Almost immediately it felt wrong. Both for me and Forrest, but we didn’t tell each other soon enough. YUP. We were going the wrong way. AWESOME.

So, it was supposed to be a 20 minute train ride back to Naples, but we got off an hour later. In Buccino, Italy, which is in the MIDDLE OF NOWHEREEEEE!! But is absolutely gorgeous. So instead of being upset about the fact that not only did we miss our trains/take the wrong ones, we wouldn’t be making it to Bari in time for our hostel reservations…which meant we were out 40 euros… We took lots of pictures of the gorgeous scenery and took some of my favorite pictures from our whole trip

favorite. just spinning around best friends.   

So we finally catch a train back to Salerno, which we then took to Naples. Our stuff was stored at the train station in Naples, so we decided to take our smaller bags out for the time being.  We then decided that our best bet, it was like 10 by the time we got back to Naples, that we would just sleep in the train station.  We decided that I would stay with the bags while Forrest went to find something to eat, since we hadn’t eaten since our desserts in Pompeii.  So I gave him the coupon book, just in case, and he hurried outside.  Not only did he find a McDonalds, but he was the last one to get inside before they closed. They even denied this woman and her son after Forrest got inside.  Then he came back with Sundaes, Nuggets, Fries, and even sweet and sour sauce. That’s why we call this THE MCDONALD’S MIRACLE!!!

This face was because I was taking a picture…not because of the nuggets.

  YUP.

So, it kinda got a little worse from there… We decided to sleep in the train station, but we didn’t know it closed at midnight. So we were forced to go outside until it reopened at 3.  It wasn’t too cold and we made friends with two German guys, so it wasn’t too bad, at first. There were a lot of homeless people outside, who were on drugs, so that was a little scary. One of the ladies laid down pretty close to one of the German guys and when she got up, she had peed all over the place.  It was kinda bad, but Forrest tried to sleep some, while I watched our stuff with the German guys.  At 3, we went back inside and it was my turn to sleep…off to Bari in the morning.