Home » Italy » From Rome to Pompeii and onto Sorrento

We had some free time after our hard day of sight seeing so Art and I retired for lunch out the front of the Pantheon… so very harsh!!! The food was excellent, views extraordinary and the Italian water gave us some cold lemon chello as a gift!! We like it here!!
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From Rome to Pompeii and onto Sorrento

Tav
2006-01-13 19:41:48

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billion pounds given to them in aid instead of the purpose that it was given for - rebuilding the flattened houses… Instead they built only temporary accommodation for those left homeless, accommodation which many still live in today…

We continued onto Pompeii, back in 79AD Mt Vesuvius erupted after billowing smoke for 2 days covering the ancient city in volcanic ash and carbon monoxide gases. Lava never actually hit the city of

Pompeii. They say that this is one of the most significant archaeological sites in Europe as it captured ancient life and people’s expressions as they died… they’ve uncovered about ¾ of the town. They aren’t sure how many were killed in Pompeii because many people were evacuated in the two days before the eruption.

I’d watched a documentary on the site years ago so was really looking forward to seeing Pompeii, they’d showed how even though the bodies of the dead had decomposed and were gone, the ash that had been on top of them hadn’t fallen so they were able to pump liquid plaster into the hollow and get imprints of people as they were when they died. I was disappointed that there were only 2 casts there for us to see, most of them were in museums around the world, and it left me wondering why I just didn’t get to one of them instead??

The city of Pompeii was once a Greek city which was taken over by the Romans. The site is huge and surprisingly so, and the excavations were really well done. Pompeii was originally built on volcanic rock and after the eruption the King at the

time wouldn’t let the survivors rebuild on the site as it wasn’t stable due to the continuing earthquakes, but the King waited too long, enforcing the ban for 3 months. By this time the bodies were decomposing and if they’d have tried to uncover the site then they would have spread all sorts of disease.

We had lunch at a particular restaurant, apparently once one of the Contiki drivers/Managers didn’t eat there and went somewhere else when he was visiting and the mafia men roughed him up a bit!!!

Finally we arrived in Sorrento which saw our amazing driver Ryan drive through some extremely narrow streets highlighting his extraordinary driving skills, it was such a tough drive and I felt sorry for him! Wouldn’t have even liked to have done it in a car!

Once again, even on the water, the houses and units looked poor and un-maintained.

We got to our hotel, which was on the side of the cliff that had amazing views overlooked the beach with it’s grey sand and big rocks in the water. Even though the view was great the walk up the steep hill to the hotel was a tough one and we were a long way from

the centre of town.

We went to a restaurant called the Circolo Dei Forestieri for a four course dinner and wine, the view was sensational at sunset as it was on a cliff overlooking the water too.

The town itself is more touristy and very busy- I don’t like to be so tightly packed into small pedestrian streets like that… But they make Lemon Chello here and we bought some to drink later!!!