Pompei

We are very tired. We spent the night at a nice hotel in Naples, but the heat was on very high (and we had no control over it) and the best were very hard. The pillows were the best we have encountered though, and we finally had a hotel that included breakfast! The breakfast was worth the hard beds. There was meat, and two kinds of cheese, several breads, yogurt, juices, fruit, cereal, and maybe or two other things we forgot. We ate as much as we could hold, then we were on the train for Pompei.

Pompei was very intersting, and much, MUCH bigger than any of us expected it to be. We got a lot of nice pictures of the ruins that we will post when we get back. (Check back for pictures a few days after we get back!) It was really amazing how much survived for so long. We were a bit disapointed that we only got to see one body. Apparently, most of that stuff is at a seperate museum in Naples, and we do not have time to visit it, plus we already paid 11 Euros each to get into the ruins. We had lunch at a cute little pizza place. Actually, we were kind of hustled into the pizza place by a person on the sidewalk. The people are much more insistant here, and we were hungry anyway. We are glad we went in. We each ordered a different kind. Kirk had the best one, with garlic and sauce and no cheese. Cathy had the second best one, which four kinds of cheese and no sauce. Jeremy had an okay one, with some type of mystery meat. We all shared our pizzas with each other, then went off to pick up a gelatto (ice cream- Melanie, there was one named after you!) and coffee. Cathy got tea, and it was a real production. They brought out a whole pot, and little shortbread cookies, and sugar and milk in a little pitcher.

We also met another American at the tourist office. Shout out to Vic! He was from New York and now works in England. We met at the tourist office and walked up to the ruins together. It was nice to meet somebody else who is a native English speaker. Everywhere else pretty much everybody spoke English, but we have had more trouble finding English speakers the further south we go. It has not really been a problem, but sometimes it can be frustrating. (Like the weird guy who followed us around at the train station, wanting to give us information. How do you yell No! We are not interested! Go away! in Italian? Anybody?)

We are off to Florence in a couple of hours, and then to Milan and the Lake Como area. We will hopefully have time to write from there!