Monday, July 11
OK ... so before we left Australia we signed up for an organised tour ... this is my FIRST ever organised tour - I've also freelanced my travel plans. We were picked up in Rome early morning and luckily for us/me ... we discovered that you can buy pocket expressos! Think of the size of a tomato sauce squeezer sachet and swap the contents for a chocolatey expresso ... complete with a miniature straw!
When it was my turn to go into the bathroom to get ready I noticed there was a pocket expressor (empty) packet in the shower ... can anyone say 'desperate'??? Had a laugh with Bobbie about that.
Onto the transfer bus and then onto the tour bus for our trip to Southern Italy. It's a 3 day tour and we get to visit some great places. Today we made our way to Naples & Pompeii initially. After about 1.5 hours we stopped for a 'pee pee break' as our tour director called it. We had been given strict instructions to make our way to the toilets first and then go to the refreshment bar so that we could be the first bus out and subsequently the first bus arriving in Pompeii. Like good little sheep we baaaaaed and turn right to the toilets and afterwards grab our refreshments. Back on the bus for roughly another hour and we arrived in Naples where we had a very brief introduction to some of the main sites of Naples. My second time in Naples and I can't say I like it any better. Still looks like an industrial worksite to me. Interestingly, back in 2002 roughly they were excavating to create an underground station and found a Roman Museum ... scratch that station for the underground huh?
Next was Pompeii. HOWEVER ... before going into the ruins, we were taken to a Cameo factory and saw one of the Masters carving a gorgeous cameo into a shell. A walk through the sales room was of course next and while I would LOVE to have bought a decent cameo ... it was WAY out of my price range!
The next 2 hours we walked around the ruins of Pompeii. Along the lava cobbled roads we walked and ducked into any available shade at designated information spots. It was as always immensely interesting but so different to how I remember it. I guess it has been quite a while since I was last here. The remaining bodies are now viewed through jail-like cells, along with original columns, tables, jars, platters etc. Even a dog was caught in the ash fall out. Speaking of dogs .... there were quite a few live ones hogging all the shade too. Smart though - they knew that the ruins that still have marble are the coolest. We saw the Roman baths with the various cold and steam rooms. The steam room thankfully was cool and I found myself lying against a nearly 2000 year old column syphoning it's coolness into my skin. We also saw a brothel. I saw one in Pompeii's ruins last time I was here and it certainly wasn't this one. This one was decorated with frescos ... and I think I leave that up to your imagination. Let's just say they left nothing to the imagination. It was great to see again ... and to see different things than I had before.
Last stop for the day was Sorrento. OH WOW. Not sure that the view can actually be googled! A few hair-raising turns on the mountain edge as we came into the city and we were delivered to our hotel. OH WOW ... the hotel. OH WOW. It's right on the corner of one of the cliff faces. We can stand on our balcony and see the whole city of Sorrento below us ... the Bay of Naples gapes wide in front and then we have Mt Vesuvius right across the bay. S.T.U.N.N.I.N.G. There's 5 pools with a cascading water feature (haven't seen that part yet as the pool closed just as we rocked up!). And dinner in the restaurant was brilliant. I think Bobbie & I were having way too much fun laughing at each other ... but hey, the rest of the patrons were kinda staid. We finished dinner and were off to meet another Australian couple in the Piano Bar and as we were leaving one of the waiters asked 'where are you going'. Tried to explain we were meeting friends but there was obviously a communication gap. I finally clicked to what was happening when he gestured towards another waiter and said 'drinks at the square' ... I looked at Bobbie and said 'Date!' ... Ooooohhhhh Capeesh! Not tonight ... "tomorrow?" ... um, let's see how we feel after tomorrow says Bobbie. Hmmm ... thinking we need to cement a date with our Australian couple for dinner tomorrow night before we get propositioned again.
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