Walking through Time: Pompeii

The Amalfi days were the color of limoncello—sun-slow and sugar-bright. Mornings started with sea air and tiled terraces; afternoons softened into that syrupy golden hour that makes you forgive every stair you climbed to get there. I would have stayed forever if not for the tiny matter of getting to Naples, which meant pointing the car toward a road that was never designed for modern nerves.

By the time I left Positano, the coast had turned dramatic in that “are we in a postcard or a dare?” way. Buses rounded hairpins like ballerinas with a death wish. Scooters beamed into my lane and out again as if made of vapor. The GPS spoke in riddles. I white-knuckled the steering wheel, promised myself I’d never judge another driver’s “shortcut” again, and chose a mantra: breathe, look, trust.

Somewhere past Sorrento—where the blue of the water looks like it learned the word “ultramarine” and wanted to try it on—I saw a brown sign flash by: Pompei Scavi. I didn’t plan it. I just felt the car indicate for me. If the road insisted on chaos, maybe the ruins could answer with stillness. I took the exit, found a parking spot by sheer luck and a prayer to the patron saint of rental cars, and followed the tide of people to the gates.

Pompeii greeted me with heat and hush. Not silence, exactly; there were plenty of visitors, guides with flags, and the clack of sandals on stone. But under it all lived a lower note—the hum of a place that remembers. I passed through the arch and into a grid of streets scored with deep wagon ruts, like the city had been sketched in with a strong hand and then left for the sun to finish. Frescoes smoldered on walls in ancient reds and midnight blues. In one courtyard, a lone fig leaf trembled in the breeze, determined to keep growing where a dining room once gathered family and gossip.

My guide drifted near, an older man with a straw hat tilted to shade an entire lifetime of stories. “You know the stepping stones?” he asked, as if we were mid-conversation. “They were crosswalks. So clever, the Romans. Water could pass. Feet stayed dry. Traffic slowed.” He paused. “We think we invented things, but most days, we rediscover.”

As I left to wander through a bakery where round millstones slept in the sun. I stood in the doorway and pictured the muscle and laughter that must have poured through this space, the flour suspended in light like confetti. In the House of the Vettii, a fresco winked from its frame—Dionysus, grapes, a promise that life insists on pleasure even when history argues otherwise. I moved slower, shoulders relaxing, breath matching the rhythm of my own footsteps.

Perspective has a way of sneaking up on you in Pompeii. You arrive dehydrated from the road and the heat, then suddenly you’re attentive—awake to mosaics under your feet, to a garden’s geometry, to the amphitheater’s perfect curve of stone steps that still hold sound the way a shell holds the sea. I whispered a hello just to hear the acoustics answer. The echo returned soft, as if the city wished me courage for the miles ahead.

Back behind the wheel, the road to Naples felt less like a gauntlet and more like a return. Laundry flapped from balconies as if the city were saying, “Benvenuta—come as you are.” Vesuvius tilted into view, a shadow with a legend, and the traffic thickened into a choreography I didn’t yet know but wanted to learn. By late afternoon I slid into the courtyard of the Renaissance Naples Hotel Mediterraneo, surrendered the keys, and stood still long enough to feel my shoulders drop an inch. The lobby smelled faintly of lemon and polished wood. The front-desk smile was the kind that says, “Yes, of course,” before you ask the question.

“Rooftop?” I asked.

“Rooftop,” she promised, circling breakfast with her pen like a blessing.

That night, Naples outside my window played an operetta of scooters, clinks, and laughter rising from the street—less white noise, more invitation. I slept as if the mattress were a raft and the city had promised to carry me.

Morning came with a silver-blue sky and the promise kept. The elevator opened onto the rooftop like a reveal: the port stretched out in a grid of cranes and masts, ferries tracing white threads toward Capri and Ischia, church domes catching light like polished coins. A breeze lifted the corners of the tablecloths and brought with it the crisp, salty smell of the bay.

Breakfast arrived as a quiet parade—cups and saucers, a carafe of coffee so dark it felt like punctuation, pastries that shattered into sugar snow, slices of fruit that reminded me sunshine has a flavor. I ate slowly. From up here the city looked cinematic, the kind of place where you could fall in love on a Tuesday. The coffee unspooled the last knots of the drive. Vesuvius sat in the distance like a fatherly warning: live now.

I walked the city that day with rooftop calm in my pocket—past the Galleria’s glass spine, past Via Toledo chattering in a hundred small dramas, past open doors where nonnas supervised the block with PhD-level side-eye. Naples is a mood ring; by noon it was set to “bold.” By dusk, it would tip to “romantic,” but first, dinner.

Everyone in Naples has an opinion about pizza, and I adore a place that worships at the altar of dough. I slipped into the Quartieri Spagnoli, where the alleys tighten into secrets and scooters play tag with time. The sign for al Ruotinoappeared like a smile you’ve been waiting for. Inside, the hiss of the oven sounded like someone telling the truth.

“Una margherita,” I said, thinking simplicity would let the ingredients do their bragging.

The pie arrived with a cornicione puffed and blistered—leopard-spotted from the kiss of the oven. The center had that Neapolitan softness, tender enough to fold, structured enough to carry a conversation. I lifted a slice and the world went quiet for a bite: San Marzano tomatoes bright and sweet as if they’d been born under a spotlight; fior di latte offering cream and calm; basil perfuming the whole scene like a love letter; a final gloss of olive oil catching the light the way earrings do when you laugh. The crust crackled exactly where it should, then gave way to air and chew and a whisper of smoke.

There’s a silence you give to art and good bread. That’s the silence I had for al Ruotino. Best pizza of the trip—no contest. Not the flashiest, not stacked with toppings, just flawlessly itself. The kind of pizza that makes you feel lucky to be alive on a street you didn’t know yesterday.

A table of locals beside me discussed football in that singsong rise and fall that makes even disagreements sound affectionate. The server refilled my water with an absentminded grace that felt like family, then asked if I wanted dolce. I wanted a hundred things—a fourth slice, a second stomach, a time machine—but I said, “Grazie, sono a posto,” and meant it. Some meals need a period, not an ellipsis.

I walked back out into the Quartieri like a person with a secret. Naples was shifting to its night costume—neon warming up, windows glowing, couples negotiating gelato flavors like treaties. If you stand still here long enough, a story finds you: a kid in a Messi jersey dribbling a scuffed ball, a woman watering geraniums on a balcony, a delivery driver whistling Puccini to nobody and everybody. The city is a chorus; you don’t have to sing to belong.

Back at the hotel, I rode the elevator to the roof one more time. The harbor lights strung themselves like a necklace across the dark. Vesuvius was a shadow in the corner, a reminder and a guardian both. The breeze lifted my hair, cooled my cheeks, and carried the faintest hint of yeast from some bakery already planning tomorrow.

I thought about the day laid out like a tasting menu: Amalfi’s sun as the opener, Pompeii as the palate cleanser—surprising, clarifying, necessary—then Naples as the main course, all heat and heartbeat and pleasure. I thought about the road that had scared me and the ruins that steadied me. About how travel so often asks you to be brave and then rewards you with something simple and perfect, like a rooftop breakfast or a pizza that understands you.

On the flight home, when the plane banked and the bay folded away beneath the wing, I realized I was taking three souvenirs I didn’t have to declare. The first was a sense memory: warm stone under my sandals and the faint echo of my voice in an ancient amphitheater. The second was a view: ferries stitching the water, domes winking, coffee steam curling into morning. And the third was a taste: tomato, milk, basil, smoke—al Ruotino’s margherita, the one future pies will be measured against.

Eat well. Love deeply. Travel far. Play often. And if the road rattles you, take the exit for Pompeii. Let history hold your hand, let a rooftop teach you to breathe again, and end your night where the oven glows and the pizza reminds you why you came.

These sites aren’t just historical monuments; they are time capsules, preserving the essence of ancient life and providing invaluable insight into human history.