Sunday, May 27th -- We awoke early and met in the breakfast room. There was a pot of espresso made for us with some pastry. A meager breakfast by any standards. We left at 7:45am and walked up to the garage, and I do mean UP with capital letters. It was about as steep an incline a himan can walk without resorting to a hands on pavement technique. We arrived at the garage a few minutes before 8:00am and retrieved our car. We were told that the daily rate was 15 Euros, but I had to pay them 20 Euros becasue we had a "large car".  Give me a break!!

Based solely on Daniel's navigational skills, we made it through the city. It reminded me of Gotham City from the fictional Batman saga. We arrived at the gates of Pompei nearly 30-monutes early to meet our private tour guide.  You will see from the pictures that he was dressed quite dapper in a aged sense. I had a bit of difficulty undersatnding his english, but he certainly knew the right words, but with a strong Italian accent.  I will not bore the reader with the history of Pompei -- there are many good sources for that. Suffice it to say that we spent nearly four hours there and I can remember less than 10% of what I was told. It was a lovely day, not too hot, but four hours of seeing anything, let alone ruins from two thousand years ago is a long time.

We drove our guide to Herculeuneum, the second of the two buried cities from the Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD.  Whereas Pompei was buried by ash, Herculeneum was covered in lava. The fact that they could excavate either city is truly unbelieveable.  Herculeneum was a tourist city in ancient times, a place for a second home and about one fourth the size of Pompei. As is true for Pompei, there are a lot of good sources for Herculeneum history. The most memorable visions I have of both is the remnents of their art, both mosaic and frescos. The plaster had to be at least four inches thick on the walls - the artistry was amazing.

Our tour guide left for his home by train and we headed back to our B&B.  We decided that we could not spend another night there, so we told the manager that our travel plans had changed, offered to pay for the second night, and had to leave. She was disappointed and offered us a 40 Euro discount (on a 70 Euro room) for the second night. We thanked her, packed our bags (actually, we never unpacked anything other than a change of underwear and toiletries), packed the car we double parked, and headed off to our next stop, Villa Fontelunga. I had called ahead and they confimed that we could check in a day early.  Hurrah!! 



Plaster Cast of Pompei Citizen Captured in Ash



Pompei Fresco

We arrived at 7:30 pm.  What a delightful surprise. The villa is everything we had imagined and more. Our hosts greeted as long lost friends, signed us in over a glass of wine, brought our luggage to our room, and made dinner reservations for us at a lovely restaurant in the nearby country side. Dinner was excellent -- our rooms devine -- our hosts could not have been more accomodating. We are in for a lovely 5-days.