Time flies when you’re having fun! Our week at the cottage at the bottom of the Vesuvius has just ended. We had a grand time there, following in the footsteps of the Romans. We visited remnants of their villa’s, with the Vesuvius visible in the background…
On our 23rd wedding anniversary (July 26th, yay us!) we drove to the Amalfi coast. Beautiful there but very narrow and busy (overrun by tourists, really) and we couldn’t find a parking spot, so never actually got out of the car in either Amalfi or Positano.
We ended up in Sorrento, which turned out to be a really lovely town!
On a fun side note – as we walked through Sorrento I was thinking of Pierce Brosnan as I knew he had filmed around there some 8 or 9 years ago for the Danish movie Love Is All You Need, a movie I absolutely love and made two fan videos for. And sure enough, in the middle of the old town center, we stumbled across the location of the café that featured in the movie! Images from the movie…
… and my pictures…
We of course also visited Pompei which was quite impressive. It was a dream come true for Mr E to visit there. He went twice, while I went there once. Very hot, of course, and our feet got quite filthy, but very much worth it! Mr E wore his Monty Python “What have the Romans ever done for us?” t-shirt on his second visit (my first visit) there, which garnered some smiles here and there and one guy calling out enthusiastically: “Hey, Monty Python!”
We also visited Herculaneum, another town that got buried under the pumice and ashes of Vesuvius in 79 AD. Much smaller than Pompei but very impressive too with even the first known street billboard (or so they say) advertising wine. And yes, that’s a real cat in that last picture taking a nap in the souvenir shop.
We also took some time to relax while we were at that cottage (suriving the mosquito bites better after we bought mosquito repellent ointment), I even watched the new Persuasion over on Netflix (my thoughts on that to follow another time) and most evenings we cooked our own meals. And yes, I bought some cat food to spoil ‘our’ 3 cats with. The owner of the cottage also fed them, but not daily I think, so I wanted to spoil them while we were there.
Today (or actually yesterday as it’s after midnight) we left our cottage and drove along the northern part of the Naples bay and found a beautiful spot to have lunch. It is from somewhere here that Pliny the Younger witnessed the Vesuvius eruption (Vesuvius is visible in the background of the picture I am in) and 25 years later described what had happened in letters.
We have now driven to our new hotel north of Napels, on the coast, in a place called Pozzuoli. After we dropped our things at the hotel (we have a sea view, albeit along a busy street), we walked into town. Pozzuoli is the least touristy place we’ve been to (and it’s apparently also the city actress Sophia Loren grew up in) and we really like it. We also caught gimpses of the old amphitheater on the way. It’s got a lively center filled with Italians going out on a late Saturday afternoon/evening (no evening pictures here, though, but it did get very busy as we walked back to the hotel after our dinner).
We’ll be here for a few days as we want to visit Napels and maybe see something of old volcano craters in the neighbourhood. And so on we go…
And he’s expressive when moving around (click on images to enlarge)…
I really hope they get through this difficult time well together…
The Book of Esther 