In America, according to Randy Newman at least "you get food to eat; (you) don't have to run through the jungle and scuff up your feet". If getting here is half the fun I'm in for a dire few days! Firstly I am up before 6.00am to pack and get generally ready to fly to San Francisco which means first up a trip to Munich. The seasoned world traveller will tell you that from Heathrow Munich is pretty well in the opposite direction if your destination is SFO, but such are the vagaries of modern cheap air travel. So from 8.00am [View Full Entry]

---

---

Okay so let's say this right off the bat, there are at least four different names for the airport in Naples. The signs on the motorway may or may not have a pictogram of a plane next to one of the names and the pictogram for the civilian airport is the same as for the International airport. There are no kilometres on any of the signs and some places the arrows poit in two opposite directions. The Lonely Planet guide says you need a death wish to drive in Naples, I'd settle for a decent road sign! Eventually we spot a [View Full Entry]

---

---

Two contrasting days in Campania (half way down Italy on the left hand side). First day is a trip down the Amalfi coast, which sounds vaguely Greek because it was Greek for such a long time. You have to keep reminding yourself that Italy has only been a single nation for a relatively short time and the regional differences were forged over a couple of thousand years so Neo Polis becomes Napoli becomes Naples so then does Adelphi become Amalfi. It is the geography that does it. The villages along the coast cling gamely to the cliff faces and each flat [View Full Entry]

---

---

Pompei is a wreck! I mean you thought Naples was a dump, Pompei is practically unihabitable. It is an amazing place, a bit of a mix between gosh wow ruins and well intentioned rebuilding without too much reference to the original blue prints. Getting to Pompei is a breeze, train from Sorrento and the ruins are right outside the station. There is something eerily familiar about the streetscape and despite what I am sure is a certain amount of poetic license having been taken the effect is still one of familiarity of scale. This is not too dissimilar to what we [View Full Entry]

---

---

You don't have to be out of your mind to drive in Naples but that would certainly put you in the minority! Up at just after 4.00am to get the 7.30am flight from Gatwick to arrive in Naples around midday to pick up the Fiat Idea, there is a joke somewhere there so I wil come back to it. It is a simple matter to get from the airport to Sorrento without going into Naples at all. The first step is to avoid any direction given by Gerry as it is invariably wrong. Worse getting off the motorway means getting amoungst [View Full Entry]

---

---

Well near Logleat but a journey to get here! Moya, Gerry and self went up to London on Monday evening to go to a wine tasting and to have dinner with Alex and hgis squeeze (Zenyp??). This involved the usual challenge with the British rail system, bitterly cold wind so the waiting room was locked and staff hed buggered off. The ticket machine had gone out in sympathy so we boarded with out the usual formality of geting a ticket. Got to Waterloo and told a totally startled railway employee that we would like to pay please and he sent us [View Full Entry]

---

---

Well not lost exactly, some losses some plusses some just plain curious. Friday night and the weekend starts here. Albert Lee plucking at the Half Moon in Putney! Fantastic, I feel as if I will be deaf for a month at the end of the night but he is just magic on a guitar, descriptions seem mild in comparison to the effortless way that he coaxes sounds form the instrument. The band with him "Hogans Heros" feature piano redal steel and drums and they kick arse. After one raging piece That has the crowd bouncing I ask if they could please [View Full Entry]

---

---

I've decided to abandon the daily commentary in favour of a geographic entry. London has been a bit of a blur really, possibly due to my wholehearted acceptance of the culture of the pub! I bought in a bottle or two of duty free and the first night after spending some time with Helen and her family I had intended on an early night but first we opened the bottle of Champers that really has started something of a trend! Besides the opportunity for a few domestic chores I have managed to get out and about. The weather is pretty nondescript [View Full Entry]

---

---

Has it been just over a week? Not a test just it seems so much longer or an awful lot has been crammed in today though is to be relatively quiet as I dicover that I am the first to be up at 7.00. No wonder the british lost the empire, it probably happened before 11.00am when they were asleep or having breakfast. It is possible that they were so engrossed with the times crossword that everything else paled, bloody thing that it is! Met James the cigarette smoking fitness instructor, Moya's No1 boarder, seems to be a nice fellow, then [View Full Entry]

---

---

Day Seven, another travel day! Woke up early again, bloody JL.... Okay so maybe going to sleep at 6.00pm was not the best idea I’ve ever had. It was fine at the time but then when I woke at 5.00 after a good long sleep it was time for some CNN and a bit of reading to fill the three hours until the kitchen opened so I could get some more of that delicions Germann spam and pickle breakfast. Checkout is at 10am so after breakfast I have a bit over an hour to kill before I have to be out [View Full Entry]

---

---