Day 19 - Pompei

Well people, this is what started it all. 2 years ago we started saving up to come and see Pompei and finally the day has come and of course, we're all sick. Olivia is the worst of all of us - just a head cold, but still - what a spew! Anyway, we popped some Codrals and we Soldiered On!

We got off the ship without much of a plan apart from getting to Pompei and back and we were pounced on by half a dozen taxi drivers. They all had the same brochure in their hands with published prices of different types of tours and how long they each took so we certainly didn't feel 'taken advantage of'. We brokered a deal with one paesano to take us to Sorrento for a couple of hours and then to Pompei for a couple of hours. He threw in a quick little highlights tour of Napoli city and the deal was done, an 8 hour excursion had been created.

Kids where excited to see Mt Vesuvius 

Our man, Peter looked after us, recommended where we could eat (I'm sure they're on the take when they do that) and then arranged to meet us at a certain point and take us to the next stop. It's such a great way to tour, it doesn't get more tailored to your needs than this and all for about 1/3 of what the MSC excursions would have cost us. The only thing is you have to pot luck wether your taxi driver knows much about his city and how willing he is to share that information with you. So far we've been lucky.

Nice Pizza almost as good as Papa Elder's in Essendon

Sorrento was an absolute bonus for us. We didn't think we were going to be able to make it down to that part of the world at all, so to be able to see a little of that coast line was great. We meandered through some of the streets, tasted the BEST Limoncello and bought some Dry Ginger Ale for Ben to sneak his scotch and dry's in back in the cabin. This cruise is going to be far more economical than the last one, maybe I can spend the savings on something nice for moi??? Oh yeah - hard to do when you have a whinging little boy that either rolls his eyes or tries to drag you past the shop front door whenever we walk past a clothes, shoe or jewellery shop. Different when we're shopping for souvenirs though. They've bought more cacarezzi than I care to account for, little bugger!

Lee was in Heaven how some one could manage to come up with the idea of having  a home wares store that  sold lemon biscotti i don't know (great little shop nice lemons )

And there's the  lemon biscotti in Sorrento

Poor Liv crook as dog still managed a smile for a couple of Aussies from Sydney taking our picture

Pompeii

The small Amphitheatre , today you would call it off Broadway 

Back in the day this is where i would have spent my time , at the bar , these are terracotta vessels would have been filled with wine and they are on just about every street corner in Pompeii ( They certainly weren't tea totalers )

Main St of Pompeii

Nice Fresco, I think they are telling the time old story of the Old Bull and the Young bull ,how does that one go again Dad

What a great place

Just another street the kids and I  did an Archeology dig on 

It was a very well advanced society 

An emotional experience

The walkway to the amphitheatre 

For a change I was busting 

Just some of the court yards of the rich in Pompeii 

Vesuvius in the back ground the poor buggers didn't stand a chance

I forget what this place was used for but I'm thinking by the looks of that altar in the back ground it could of been used for  Virgin sacrifice 

Pompei was much bigger than I realised. It's pretty cool that the city was only discovered by accident when they were excavating for a new water supply to a nearby town in 1598. Over 400 years later and they're still uncovering new areas. It's still a work in progress. The most impressive was seeing the mummified people that were frozen in time when the rain and ash hit Pompei, very sad. Thought of you heaps James, we've even brought a piece of Pompei home for you (if we get it in through customs) the kids thought they were on an archeological dig and picked up so many pieces of terracotta and stone, I was dying!

This is the actual spot where pompeii was discovered ,when they were laying this water pipe line to a near by town

At the souvenir shops before you walk in a little old Italian lady came over to us to tell us how gorgeous the children were and that she wanted to give them a post card each 'un buono ricordo'. Of course that got the kids in and so we followed her to her stand, 'while you're here, have a look' she says, so of course the kids did. 'Look look, a beautiful rosa' she says as she opens this ugly velour rose which had a pair of ear rings and necklace inside, she was practically forcing it down Liv's throat (I don't know how Olivia didn't fall for it), meanwhile Olivia was shuffling through her awful offerings of keyrings and pulls out one and asks how much, the lady shoved it into a bag and then grabbed another one out of the pile and stuck it in the bag and said 'buono buono, damme 8 Euro' - No worries love! I took the ugly gladiators helmet one out of the bag (much to Nicholas' disgust) and told her I would give her 2 Euro for Olivias one. "Ma no, signora, non mi fa cosi, dammi 4 armeno" Sorry lady, you're dealing with a hard arsed bitch here. I gave her the bag back and said "vi rigrazio per la tuo hospitalita, pero non voglio ti offendero, lasciamo" (thanks for your hospitality but I don't want to offend you, but we'll leave it) and handed the bag back to her, and she says "va bene, damme 2.50" She was a piece of work that one.

Great Lemons in the car park of Pompeii (nice orange juice too)

Naples is a very busy city. Dirty though. I couldn't believe how much rubbish there was in the streets, bags and bags of it. Full on graffiti everywhere. Not the proudest of cities. In any case, Peter seemed pretty pleased with his town. When we commented on how busy the traffic was he laughed and said we were in uncharacteristically quite traffic that day!

The Castle looking over the port of Naples

Big day! Thank God for the pharmaceuticals!

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