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Published: April 20th 2007
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And this is a winner...
Katherine and I in Pompeii with Vesuvius behind Well, I hate to say it, but I have found a place I hate. And it happens to be in a country I love. Naples is crap! Seriously, they should warn you about this and say No. Just Don't Go There.
But they don't and here we are. Naples is terrible, but first, a little bit about our last few days in London...
After a couple of days of pure recovery from the Contiki we set about being tourists again and went to the Tower of London. It is expensive, £16 to be exact, but totally worth it. The Tower of London was built by William *is that his name?* the Conqueror who decided that he would build himself a defence fort right up against the eastern wall of London, which was established by the Romans, in the 12th Century. The Tower of London is actually a large four storey building with four towers on each corner. From then on, it was added to, with two outside walls and a moat being put in place. For 500 years the Royal Family lived there and the Beefeaters, who are the royal families bodyguards still live there.
The Beefeaters, or Yeoman Guards,
You haven't done anything wrong have you...?
Katherine in front of a fountain that stands on the spot where the internal executions were held at the Tower of London, infront of the Queens House are the ones who guide you round the place and generally look after it all. The area is located close to Tower Hill where they would execute people, once the persons head had been lopped off, the head would be put on a stake and put up on London Bridge, at the entrance to the city, and the headless body would be bought back to the chapel at the London Tower. In the 19th Century, Queen Victoria was having a tidy up of the chapel and when they pulled the floor up they found 1500 headless bodies. Some where identified and reburied, the others were just put back into the walls. It is a weird feeling being in that chapel, which is still used today.
They have a building which houses the crown jewels, impressive, but i'm not really into showy jewels, meh, who really needs a diamond the size of a fist...
The Queens House is also a feature, it was built by King Henry VIII, I don't really know my Roman numerals, should it be IIX? No, that looks wrong. Anyway, this house was built for one of his wives, but before it was finished he had her
A good mix
Katherine in front of part of the Tower of London and the Gerkin, good job on the intergration London, I mean that. executed in the courtyard out the front of the house for infidelity. Nice man.
We went out for curry in Bricklane which is the curry mecca of London and it was good. I can see why they say that the curry in London is the best in the world.
After taking almost as long on the tube to get to Heathrow as it did to fly here, we arrived in Naples yesterday. Now, a disclaimer... it is actually really hard for me to hate a city, especially one that I have paid to come to. And I never thought I would hate somewhere more than LA. But I do. And i'm here right now. Naples is dirty, loud and terribly in your face. It amazes me that it survives, not only for the dilapidated state of everything, but the fact that everyone who lives here hasn't killed each other yet. There are no road rules, and it shows, it is bedlam out there and to cross the road you have to hold your breath, run like buggery and hope that they stop in time. To be fair, they could market themselves as a tourist attraction for thrill seekers.
However, we
The entrance, dun dun dun
The two gates leading into one part of Pompeii, the small one of people and the large one for animals did not come here for Naples, we came for Pompeii and that was a roaring sucess. Pompeii was a very succesful Roman city that was totally destroyed by ash when Vesuvius erupted in 79AD. In the 17th century they started to excavate and have been doing so up until this day. The city is amazingly intact, there are houses, shops and public areas. The roads still show the tracks of the chariot wheels and there are still frescoes on some of the walls. It is absolutely amazing and really did take my breath away. My only sadness is that we didn't get longer there.
We also climbed to the top of Vesuvius today, and that really was difficult, we earnt our lasagne today I tell you what! Its pretty good up there, I don't think we had the best day for it, no wind meant lots of mist and smog. But still worth it to say that we've climbed to the top of the only volcano on the mainland of Europe. But as we are volcano dwellers, nothing other than the sheer height of it was really that impressive.
I've thought about it a lot, if Florence is the wise,
Poor guy...
They think this guy was a slave and was chained to the ground, which is why he now looks like this stately and rich city of Italy, and Rome is the fiery, old and quickwitted one, then Naples is the dirty, sickly, mentally unstable city of Italy. It is the abcess on the clean bill of health that Italy displays.
Ciao Naples, I hope to never see you again.
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