Submitted by Stella Castor on the 2018 winter session program in Italy sponsored by the Department of Philosophy…
Sorrento. If my time in Rome was characterized by exploring as much of the city as I could and never running out of new experiences, my time in Sorrento was characterized by a series of day trips outside of the sleepy, off-season coastal town. In Sorrento, I felt more like a tourist on vacation than I ever did in Rome – traveling from place to place, checking them off of my list of things I “just had to do” in Italia. Over the course of three days, we traveled to Pompeii, to Naples, and to Mt. Vesuvius – each new place as exciting and packed full of adventure as the last.
Interestingly enough, something that was constantly on my mind during my time in Sorrento was my own mortality, and my status as a human. These places, Pompeii, Naples’ museum containing artifacts from Pompeii, and Mt. Vesuvius, all connected to one single moment in history – the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and the destruction of the Roman cities nearby. As we trekked through the archaeological site, and saw the art displayed in the museum, and even saw the plaster molds of the corpses left behind from the eruption, I realized that thousands of people had died in that one moment. They didn’t know it was going to happen, or that that was the end of all things, or anything, up until moments before they took their final breath. And, climbing Mt. Vesuvius, I realized I was just like them. My body, weak and suffering from asthma, would not let me climb all the way to the top of the mountain – I was, unfortunately, incredibly mortal and imperfect, and it prevented me from rising to the top.
However, Sorrento wasn’t entirely depressing and introspective. It was honestly a lot of fun, almost more fun than Rome was! Our free day in Naples was especially fun, as I walked around the back alleys and streets of the city with some other classmates, in search of great pizza and cute sunglasses. At the end of the week, I would consider this leg of our program to be just the kind of relaxing getaway I needed in the middle of a cold, harsh winter month back home.
