Italy - Friday 8th June

Today was going to be one of our bigger days. The plan was to drive to Pompeii, have a look round the ruins, then hop back into the car for the long drive to our final destination, ROMA!! Same breakfast as yesterday, and as we were checking out Lou was expecting to be charged for both the drinks and pastries on the first day and then the lunch on the second day but much to our delight it was all free, plus Salvatore gave us a couple of bottles of his own olive oils and vinegars to take home with us. A really nice reminder that some people do really nice stuff for free sometimes.

We reached Pompeii around 10am and queues were already building as was the temperature. We got our tickets (quite over priced we thought) and a map that turned out to be useless and headed inside. A bit of background on Pompeii, the city of Pompeii was partially destroyed and buried under 6 metres of ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Pompeii was lost for nearly 1700 years before its rediscovery in 1748 when workers were digging for the foundations of a summer palace for the King of Naples discovered the remains.

Mt. Vesuvius

We started walking and then realised how massive the place was, it was literally the size of a large town. It was a bit disorganised and we ended up wandering around with no real direction. It was pretty cool, you could see all the foundations of the houses and some old fireplaces, and old furniture. It was so so hot, probably close to 40 degrees in blazing sunshine so the life got sucked out of us pretty quickly.

We made a hasty retreat back to the car and back on the autostrade to Rome. First hiccup with the car, the petrol light flicked on whilst we were on the motorway and on every other stretch of road we had been on there was a petrol station every 5 miles but just on this bit we started getting a bit worried. We ended up having to get off the motorway which cost us in terms of the toll road, and made a couple of wrong turns which was a BIG pain.

Lunch was made up of leftovers from and we ate on the move, as we had a deadline to make to check into our apartment in Rome. We dropped the car off at the Ciampino airport and then caught the shuttle into the Termini railway station where we had a big walk in the sun to our apartment. the "ten minute walk" that was promised on the hotel description wasn't very accurate.The lady that owned the apartment was really nice and she set us up with maps and instructions. As we had tickets for the Vatican museums that night we set about getting an early dinner. Lou put together an Italian feast before we showered and headed back out to see Rome for real.

We paused quickly at St.Peter's square briefly (more on that tomorrow), before skipping past the huge line of people waiting to get into the Vatican Museum night session (only cost 4 euro more and saved us so much time). We didn't appreciate how big the whole place was, so we just meandered through it, it was quite creepy being in the museum at night but in a good way. We saw lots of cool statues, paintings and tapestries before arriving at the Sistine chapel.

This was great but once you have seen it, that’s kind of it. And it's a lot smaller than you would think. Lou had planned a little walking route to take in a few of the sights at night, so we started off back to St.Peter's, down the main road to the Tiber River where there were heaps of bridges all with epic statues on them. We passed the Castel Sant'Angelo which was initially commissioned by the Roman Emperor Hadrian as a mausoleum for himself and his family, then across the river, down one of the most expensive streets in Rome (where all the design house have their shops) to the Spanish Steps. 

The Spanish steps was so crowded, this monumental stairway of 138 steps was built with a French diplomat bequeathed funds, in 1723–1725, linking the Bourbon Spanish Embassy, and the Trinità dei Monti church that was under the patronage of the Bourbon kings of France. Went there, got the photo and went home.

We were so tired and our legs were so sore that getting to sleep was a mission, along with the traffic noise from being on a main road.

Highlight #1: Seeing St. Peters square and the Basilica at night was pretty cool, and the Sistine Chapel. 
Highlight #2: Getting the car back in 1 piece. The Italians are crazy drivers but the little fiat 500 did us proud.
Lowlight: Petrol disaster and being too tired to take another step.
Interesting Fact #1: Giuseppe Fiorelli took charge of the excavations of Pompeii in 1860. During early excavations of the site, occasional voids in the ash layer had been found that contained human remains. It was Fiorelli who realised these were spaces left by the decomposed bodies and so devised the technique of injecting plaster into them to recreate the forms of Vesuvius's victims.
Interesting Fact #2: Approx. 4 million people visit the Sistine Chapel every year.
Interesting Fact #3: The Spanish steps are not a place for eating lunch, being forbidden by Roman urban regulations!