What is the definition of an optimist? The 5000th Roman hat seller for the day asking if I want to buy a hat when I have one on my head!
Our day in Pompeii and Naples began by a 6.45 pick up from our hotel in Rome. In true Italian style, we were shunted around from bus to bus and to several hosts and ended up in Naples with a small Italian man who barely spoke English and addressed his commentary quietly to one person in the group while the rest of us strained to hear and the children became restless. Apart from getting the giggles and nodding and smiling at what we hoped was the right places we discovered that nobody else could understand him either. Even so, we were whisked around Naples in 45 minutes and I have no idea what anything was apart from the ‘ mermaids’ he promised to show us on the beach…. The mermaids turned out to be a pile of enormous rocks with Italian men perched on them in their speedos sunbathing! At least he had a sense of humour. Naples seemed to have a few lovely historic buildings, scattered amongst the squalor and rubbish which spread for many kilometres towards Pompeii. It was a little reminiscent of Cairo, with it’s high density housing with washing hanging out the windows.
After a visit to the cameo making factory and lunch, we arrived at Pompeii in time for the the peak of afternoon heat and explored the wonderful city and all of the amazing relics. It was incredible to be scrambling over a 2000 year old city and see the condition to which it has been preserved in.
We arrived back at Rome at 9.30 pm, very tired but with the knowledge that we had to move camp to Siena early the next morning. Our bus stop at Orvieto was eventful as we all caught the fernicula up the mountain to the village and ordered a late breakfast. Sophie and I got a very slow chef and we ended up having to run back to the meeting point as we were late, with a pizza folded in half in a paper bag! Running across cobblestones with pizza in hand for 15 minutes in the heat was not a pretty sight I’m sure but I’m not sure how we would have got to Siena had we been left behind.
On arrival at Siena we made a snap decision to stay at the Busabout drop off joint and cancel our hotel. Ahhh! A swimming pool, refrigerator in our cabin and peace and quiet. We didn’t go into Siena on our first day but sat around the pool and outside our cabin reading in the cool (ish) air. Tomorrow we will go explore… or ‘re explore’ in my case!
2 weeks to go but lots of adventures to be had. We are looking forward to a rest in Cinque Terre providing the “key in the little jar by the door” can be found, as described by the Italian woman who owns the flat, but doesn’t live there. Hmmm. That could be interesting.