“And here are the stones that the Roman citizens of Pompeii used as crosswalks during ancient times…”

I carefully tip toed across four massive boulders from one side to the rocky path to the other. Every crack and crevice beneath my feet have probably lived more lives than I ever will. Chariot markings from the wheels engraved into the streets, perfectly intact fresco’s inside homes, thousands of artifacts and the bodies forever frozen in place, now all are an arms length away from me. As I look at the crumbled ruins of old homes and store shops, I can’t help but think how many twisted ankles there were during such times.

  

  

It’s hard to believe that I’m in the place that I’m in the place that I distinctly remember studying in second grade. The readings we had to do were in these thick scholastic literature books that we used to stove away in our small wooden desks beneath the seats.  The book contained the appropriate information for a second grader about where Pompeii was and why it was so important, Roman life during these times, and the big story from a Pompeii resident’s perspective on the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. The illustration done for the first page of the story was pretty spot on to the real thing. Mt. Vesuvius might have been drawn a little too close to the city though if we’re getting technical.

Visitors like ourselves were from all over the world, seeking out Pompeii like it was the promise land. The stop for Pompeii was a popular one as many of us squeezed our way out of the tightly packed metro.

The ancient city itself was exactly that. I don’t know what exactly I was expecting, but Pompeii is huge. Our group only managed to see just a fraction of the city. We toured the Forum (the main square of Pompeii), an amphitheater, the food market, the local gymnasium, and a few houses where aristocrats or significant political figures once lived. I couldn’t shake the overwhelming image in my head of this city being a functioning place at one time. Every time I took a step, I was walking in the steps of someone else too.

  

Besides the overall fact that we were walking through an almost nonexistent city that was hundreds of thousands of years old, once buried under 16 feet of ash, and somehow is still greatly preserved, what made this trip truly a memorable one were all the little trivial, yet serendipitous things that seemed to occur during our two day excursion, such as when we were on the metro and these musicians just started to play their instruments, when we by chance took this little path that led to the Villa of the Mysteries, when the fireworks randomly started going off downtown Sorrento, or the phenomenal view of the mountains and the water we were able to enjoy as we sipped on our morning cup of cappuccino.

    

Having one day in Pompeii and one night in Sorrento was not nearly enough time to even begin scratching the surface of these cities cultures. Somehow in our short amount of time though, a love affair has blossomed, and a piece of myself managed to be left behind in Pompeii and Sorrento.