Pompeii and Rome

Back on our big bus today and our first stop was a wood parquetry demonstration which was very interesting. Then we left Sorrento. Today was our lucky day with the seating arrangements on the bus. Ernesta made us rotate everyday around the bus so it was "fair" and we struck both sets of front seats for the trip to Pompeii and back to Rome.

We arrived just before lunchtime and went straight on our tour of Pompeii. It was so hot and not much shade to rest in. Aside from the heat it was very interesting. It was on August 24th AD 79 that Mt Vesuvius erupted burying the city under a layer of lapilli. Out of Pompeii's original 66 hectares, 44 have now been escavated.

It is fascinating how they built their buildings all those years ago...

Some paintings still remain...

This was the bakery and an oven still remains...

The brothel with explicit pictures on the walls and a stone bed...

It was much bigger than we expected and we spent 1 and half hours wandering through the ruins...

This shot has Mt Vesuvius in the background...

There was a display of moulds of how people and animals were found buried in the ash...

We had a late lunch and we were all glad to get back on the bus into the airconditioning...

Next stop was the Commonwealth Cemetery in Cassino. No one was very enthusiastic but we all made the effort to get off the bus. It turned out to be a beautiful Cemetery and a very moving experience walking amongst the head stones and reading the words...

It was a slow trip back into Rome as the traffic was very heavy. We got to the Sheraton just after 4pm.

This was also a huge motel. Sadly it was time for our last get together with our group. We had met some very interesting people from America, Singapore, New Zealand, Denmark, Pakistan and we were the only Australians. We got on the bus back into Romes centre for our farewell dinner at a restaurant which we worked out seated about 400 people! As always Gino (our bus driver) and Ernesta were supervising us...

Italian driving, no lanes...

The meal was ok (how much more pasta and pizza can we eat!) and we had 2 opera singers entertaining us. They tried to sell us their CD after but nobody was interested as we had all bought CD's from our very first dinner at the start of the tour...

Then back to the motel to say our goodbyes. Every night on the tour Ernesta stuck one of these posters in the foyer of the motels with all our instructions for the next day on, this is our last one...

The tour was fantastic and we learnt so much about Italy with a great bunch of people and a great director Ernesta and bus driver Gino.