Naples

I'm now on my Intrepid tour. Their are three other girls and me: Katja and Ashlin, both from Sydney and just on holidays from work, and Rosie, a Kinross girl who's on her gap year working at a boarding school just outside London (sound familiar?). So Rosie and I get along like a house on fire, YAY! And then there's our tour leader, Raffaele, an Italian 30-something who can't sit still and seems to have done nothing but travel all of his life. Considering he's studied shiatsu and is very interested in hinduism having spent alot of time in India, he does get tense when we're getting from point A to point B. It's awesome not having to think about transport and hotels and tickets &c...

So our first night we had an awesome dinner in Trastevere in Rome, and the next morning was free to complete any sightseeing we wanted to do, I went to the Capitolini museums, but didn't have much time before we were off to Naples on the train. Our hotel was right by the station so we dumped our stuff and walked around the city, stopping for afternoon drinks at a little cafe next to a castle overlooking the city. For our full day Rosie and I went to Pompei. Highlights included the bakery, the brothel, and the plaster cast people fleeing the explosion. We gave ourselves a tour, being too cheap to spring for a guide, but we had maps and a guidebook. It took most of the day, perhaps because we made a detour at one point and ended up somewhere unexpected. Afterwards we went to climb Vesuvius. Well, we got driven in a huge MOC and walked the last little way to the crater! I could've bought any number of figurines made form volcanic rock from the souvenir shops dotted around the crater (the Virgin Mary, Buddah, a turtle ... ). That night we went for yet more pizza, but this time at one of the oldest pizzerias in Naples, Trianon. My marinara pizza was very tasty, and no, it doesn't have seafood on it, it's just the original pizza which fisherman from Naples would eat back in the day which is just the base, tomato, basil, garlic and oregano. Then we went for gelato by the water.

We got to have a walk around and see the Duomo, which houses the relics of San Genarro, and the oldest baptism pool in the West. Then we just had time to wander the back streets and check out the hundreds of little woodwork stores, which specialize in nativity scenes. Apparently people form Naples are big into nativity scenes, and even like to add in extra figures, like Berlusconi and his mistress, or several famous soccer players, or even movie stars >.< Then we hopped on a bus, an overnight ferry, and a taxi to end up in Greece. I''ve just spent the day wandering around, shopping, and this afternoon I went swimming and lay about on the beach. There were so many leathery-looking Italian women applying tanning oil, but I had my hat and sunscreen at the ready! Luckily I came away from my first afternoon at the beach un-sunburnt.