Southern Italy - Naples

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We arrived in Bari at 8am after a sleepless night on the ferry. Our cabin was on the lowest deck inside (underneath the car parking facility) and Sam did not handle it very well, as a consequence Tony suffered a sleepless night too. Hmm .... in future we will have an outside cabin, above the water line.

During our taxi trip from the Bari ferry terminal to the train station we were introduced to Italian driving - anything goes, you must beep the car horn frequently, driving on the wrong side of the road is fine.

There was a train strike and we had to organise the trip to Naples by bus. Italian road signs just have the name of the town, no distances. We drove through kilometres and kilometres of grapes interspersed with olive trees or was it olive trees interspersed with grapes, not too sure.

Napoli is a hectic city with narrow streets and (it appears) no traffic laws. It is the city where pizzas was first made and they are absolutely delicious. On our first day we caught the train to Capua, Tony’s birthplace. We walked around the old part of the city that dates back to Roman times and found the hospital where he was born.
The next day we took the train to Pompeii and walked around the ruins for about 5 hours. Pompeii was destroyed in 79 A.D. - it was truly amazing to walk around houses, baths, the forum, gladiatorial theatres and the arena. The paved roads were worn down by the wheels of the carts. We went back to Napoli and walked into and around the cit, the harbour and Santa Lucia.
Day three was spent going to Mount Vesuvius, we had a great view of Napoli and the Isle of Capri we climbed up to and arond the rim, there were some steam vents. Then we visited Herculeum, which suffered the same fate as Pompeii but not the same ferocious heat. As a consequence the ruins are in better condition, some buildings still had a roof, the floor tiles, wall mosaics and paintings all survived, there was even pieces of original timber.

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