Sorrento, Pompeii, Cinque Terre, Avignon

So the next few days after Rome were a huge mess due to some confusion of the trains and hostel openings. We headed right to Sorrento which is right outside of Pompeii. It was what we imagined a little town would look like in Italy. Our hostel was actually a hotel converted to a hostel which wasn't really that cool because it didn't have many young travelers around. We needed to get up early to see everything we wanted to see in order to get to Cinque Terre in time...so we thought. We got some pizza and Gelatto for dinner and walked around the city the rest of the night.
Pompeii was awesome. It was a dug up village that was ashed over and frozen after a volcano eruption in about 79 AD. They had body cavities of humans and dogs and their remains were in great condition (The one up top was a guy who was curled up in a ball "crying himself to death"....how sad). They had a mini Colosseum where they had gladiators fight and little villages where you could see where they slept, drank, sold food etc. Paintings on the walls were also preserved really well. It was huge too, didn't even get to cover it all....THAT'S WHAT SH....nevermind. The Roman forum was impressive but after seeing how well intact everything was here it was really something. So....a disastrous volcano eruption that kills thousands can actually have a brightside to it because preservation of everything is impeccable. Afterward, we picked up some pizza and headed to the train station.
The train ride to Riomaggorie (a city near the Cinque Terre) was pretty miserable because our train broke down dead in its tracks...no pun intended. So we got there late at about 10:00. So we get to this small city (population 56) which is one road that is uphill right near the coast and the hostel is closed. The sign on the door notified us that is we didn't get there by 6:00 we would be out of luck for a room and they would still charge us. Luckily, we found a woman closing her restaurant and one phone call later we met a short, curly haired woman on a dark stoop. This is where I thought my final minutes in life would be. She brought us up this dark stairway and gave us a key to a room. We gave her 25 euro each and she left. That's it and that's all. Never saw her again. We were heated about the situation and it got worse once we found out that we messed up the train schedule. The last thing we ate was at 11:00 am so we had to wither away until the next morning. There would no way to get to Barcelona on the nights we booked unless we left the next morning. So we skipped the hike through Cinque Terre (which by the way is 5 cities a trail with really cool views). It was rainy so we weren't too upset about it. 12 hours later of train riding were in Avignon, a big city in Southern France. We went right to a Irish pub (the only thing open in the area). We left at about 1am and headed back to the train station. Our original plan was stop and stay in the train station until our 5:55am train to Barcelona but it was closed until 4am...so we went to a nearby stairwell and stooped it the whole night. That was an experience....pretty cold out too.
Barcelona is next and we will be there for 4 nights including Halloween. We plan on ending our last week with a bang.