70km away we arrived at our campsite, Camping Zeus. A fairly large campsite just off the motorway, or autostrada. On the approach the streets were lined with restaurants, lemonade stalls and souvenir stalls. We paid 24€ per night for 2 nights, mistakenly thinking this would be plenty of time. We chose a pitch lined with lime and olive trees. We pitched next to a rather unfriendly Slovenian couple who were less than impressed at having jolly neighbours like us!! Our other neighbours were a delightful couple from Quebec in Canada. They had sailed to Belgium and driven through France in thier all singing all dancing RV which we couldn't take our eyes off of, no wonder they set the perimeter alarm every time they went out. We spent a while sitting in the sun before showering and heading out.
We walked out of the campsite and straight into the entrance of Pompeii, the old town. We had no idea we would be camping so close to the ruins. A little naive and feeling embarrassed that we hadn't brushed up on our Pompeii history we paid €11 each to see the ruins. We had a quick scout around the information area to find out that in 79AD Mount Vesuvius, a volcano some 8km away had erupted and buried the city in ash and rock allowing the exceptional preservation of the whole Roman City (approx 66 hectares).
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| Pompeii Ruins |
We entered through Porta Marina and walked through lots of ancient residential streets. We were able to see roads, pavements and even some houses and shops. We visited the basilica, the thermal baths, Casa del Citarista, Dasa dei Ceii and Casa del Menandro. We also visited the enormous amphitheatre or Anfiteatro and Palestra Grande. It was amazing to see although two days here definitely wasn't enough. We agreed that we would like to go back to Pompei and possibly some other sites such as Ercolano and Oplontis, next time we will definitely pay for a guided tour. There was also a tour of Mount Vesuvius for 12€ each, this included a stop at Terrazza Due Golfi and a return coach journey to Mount Vesuvius National park, again something which really interested us which we hope to come back and do later.
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| Tempio di Apollo |
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| Terme Stabiane |
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| Sorrento |
The following day we were up and out early to take a trip to Sorrento 25km south of Pompei and the last town of any real significance on this side of the bay. We got the train from Pompei into Sorrento for 2.20€ each return, public transport in Europe is miles cheaper than in England. The train journey was hideous, it took around 40 minutes and the whole way we endured pushing and shoving and sweaty armpits stretched out in front of our faces whilst holding onto the overhead railings for dear life. Poor Oscar was trampled left right and centre, one guy even rested his laptop bag on him. When we arrived we headed to the tourist information office to find out about a boat trip to Capri. We found an all singing all dancing trip for 80€ each. The trip included lunch and drinks on board and snorkelling equipment and although we really liked the sound of it we didn't think Oscar would have appreciated eight hours on a boat, beagles aren't the greatest lovers of water so we decided we'd put this off and come back another time and do it as we were both really keen to see Capri and the blue, green and white grottos. We headed into the centre of Sorrento to explore and came across the cobbled winding streets of the old town. They were lined with shops selling pasta of all shapes, sizes and colours, biscotti and lemon cello.
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| Souvenir Heaven |
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| Dried Chilli Stall |
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| Jam shops selling pasta, wine and Lemon Cello |
Sorrento is famous for its lemons so every shop sold lemon everything!! Sweets, soap, drinks, lemon ornaments, tea towels and aprons. Every shop is decorated with hundreds of little plastic lemons around all the windows and doors too. We walked to the famous botanical gardens growing lemons and oranges and headed back to Piazza Tasso stopping en route to share a waffle with Nutella and ice cream.
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| Nutella crepe & ice cream |
When we reached Piazza Tasso we jumped on the tourist bus hoping to see some more attractions. We paid 5€ each and the tour took about an hour. Along the tour we stopped at the Marina Piccola Harbour, where boats sail to and from Capri, Ischia and Naples, Marina Grande, where we could see Mount Vesuvius across the water, the old cathedral bell tower, the Regina Giovanna, a famous museum currently exhibitioning Picasso's artwork and finally the old walls, the only part of the remaining Greek defensive wall.
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| Marina Grande |
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| Mount Vesuvius (just) |
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| Cathedral Bell Tower |
Feeling satisfied that we'd seen enough we headed to the supermarket for dinner and went back to the campsite. We'd decided to treat ourselves to chicken and chorizo fajitas for dinner, they don't sell Old El Paso mixes here so we improvised and went for a box of enchilada flavouring. Jac took care of dinner whilst Kayleigh skyped home. We sat down keen to try the fajitas......Kayleigh managed half before giving up and Jac managed 4 before sitting on the sofa a quivering wreck. He'd used the entire pack of seasoning, upon closer inspection of the instructions and making out what we could in Italian we discovered 2 tspn was the recommended amount for a serving for 4 people. He spent the rest of the evening fanning himself and drinking milk. The following morning we packed up ready for our next stop. Pompei and Sorrento is top of the list of places to visit again, we hope to come back next year.
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