Day Twelve: From Brindisi to Pompeii and Rome

There was a one hour time change between Greece and Italy. Of course, add to that the fact that Italian trains, buses etc is notorious for being late, it was no surprise that what should have been an 8:00 AM disembarking from the ferry became more like  10:00 AM.    Not a good start to a long day of driving!!!  Our bus driver picked us up from the port and we headed to Pompeii.  Carol  had for-warned us that we would have a long day on the bus.  There was lots of time to get caught up on some much needed sleep, visit with friends or update travel journals.  We drove toward Naples and stopped for lunch at an Autogrill.   Carol kept us entertained with stories and information about Greece and Italy.  We drove through rich agricultural land and saw many different crops depending on what part of the area we were in.

Pompeii

We finally arrived at Pompeii, a site many of us had been looking forward to seeing on this trip.  Pompeii is an ancient Roman town that was  completely covered by ash and pumice when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.  The site was lost for over 1500 years when it was initially discovered in 1599  and then rediscovered by a Spanish engineer in 1748.  The bodies and objects had been well preserved for many centuries because of the lack of moisture and air under the 4 - 6 meters of ash.

Mount Vesuvius

Our tour guide in Pompeii was a 78 year old man who has been working in the area since the late 1950s.  He was very knowledgeable and also very humorous.  He made the time go by very quickly and many of our group would have loved to stay longer and listened to more of his stories.

Our entertaining guide

Going into the ruins

Porta Marina

In the forum with the Temple of Jupiter behind the group

Entrance to Macellum or market 

Many different shops lined the street

One of the many arches 

Inside Roman Bath

Roman Bath

Grooves from cart wheels

Used for grinding grain and oven in background

Walking through the Roman Forum

In the Roman Forum

Home of one of the wealthy residents of Pompeii

Ancient walls

Temple of Apollo

Apollo

Near the Temple of Apollo

A plaster cast of one of the people buried

After our tour we had time to shop for souvenirs and ice cream before we boarded the bus for Rome.  We arrived about 8:30 PM and could tell that the city of Rome was already very busy because of the upcoming canonization of Pope John Paul and Pope John XXIII.  We were dropped off near the Spanish Steps and walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner.  Our first taste of Italian food!!  After dinner we went walked through some of the streets near the Spanish Steps and met up with a new bus and driver.  He took us to the Hotel  La Meridienne which was about 80 minutes from the centre of Rome.  It was very late when we arrived at the hotel, got  our luggage and finally checked in.