Leaving Rome

Today we drove from Positano back to Rome and straight to the airport. The car didn't smell too bad so we didn't mention Lia's illness.

We enjoyed this trip tremendously. I am so thankful for this opportunity. I am not sure if I will be back to Italy. It is a beautiful country. I am glad I experienced one week here.

Pompeii, Rome trip

Ever since I was in high school I have had a fascination with the lost city of Pompeii. I took high school Latin and we watched some movie about Pompeii and the volcano, Mt. Vesuvius erupting and covering the city. It was a must for me to visit Pompeii on this trip to Italy. Today was finally the day.

If you need a little history lesson...here is the background to the city. Pompeii is a ruined and partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples. Pompeii was destroyed, and completely buried, during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning two days in AD 79.
The volcano collapsed higher roof-lines and buried Pompeii under 60 feet of ash and pumice, and it was lost for nearly 1700 years before its accidental rediscovery in 1748. Since then, its excavation has provided an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a city at the height of the Roman Empire. Today, it is both one of the most popular tourist attractions of Italy, with 2,571,725 visitors in 2007,[1] and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The excavated town offers a snapshot of Roman life in the 1st century, frozen at the moment it was buried on 24 August 79. The Forum, the baths, many houses, and some out-of-town villas remain surprisingly well preserved. Besides the forum, many other services were found: the Macellum (great food market), the Pistrinum (mill), the Thermopolium (sort of bar that served cold and hot beverages), and cauponae (small restaurants). An amphitheatre and two theatres have been found, along with a palaestra or gymnasium.

We awoke to another gorgeous, sunny day. We had a big European breakfast at the hotel. We timed leaving Positano when the hotel guy said the traffic would be the best. Everything seemed to be going perfect.

We zig zagged along the coast of Italy. Lia mentioned that she had a headache and that her stomach hurt. Lily was in full worry mode now so she started entertaining Lia to get her mind off of all of the curves. Finally we made it to Sorento and Traffic jam! We creeped through town. Just when we were almost out of town and out of the jam..."Bleh!" Lia felt much better but had thrown up all over herself and the floor of the rental car. John would not pull over so we drove all the way to Pompeii. Oh the smell!! We took a wrong turn (navi probs again) so we pulled into a gas station for directions. I took Lia to the bathroom to clean her up. John cleaned up the car. It was disgusting. I got her cleaned up but her pants and undies were wasted. The puke would not come out so I tied her jacket around her naked bottom half.

So we made it to the Pompeii ruins site and the parking lot dude said we could find a clothing shop in town, which was about 1 km away. We walked for an hour and never found town. So we gave up and John let Lia wear his coat which came down to her knees.

Lia was a real trooper. She didn't complain about her situation. We had to keep her in the sun because in the shade she got a bit cold! People must of thought we were great parents with our bare legged child in the 40 degree weather.

Finally at about 1:00 we made it into the ruins and we had 3 hours to see it all. The place is HUGE. I had no idea it was such a large site. And it was so amazing! I was in a trance walking around and seeing the ruins. We used the audio guides that talked about each section. Lily and I really enjoyed hearing the details. John didn't want one at all. Lia used hers for about 20 minutes.

The view of Mt Vesuvius was pretty neat. It is 5 miles from Pompeii.

One thing you notice when you walk deeper into the city are the perfectly staight streets laid out in a grid pattern. The ancient cobble stoned streets are in great condition. We found out that the large blocks in the street are there so the pedestrians could walk across the street without getting their feet wet or stepping in horse manure. The Romans had water running constantly through the city to keep the streets clean. Also, notice the ruts in the street from the wagon wheels.


Some of the houses had beautiful fresco painted walls, detailed mosaic floors and many other details kept perfectly frozen in time. All of the original statues were removed and taken to the Naples Museum of Archeology. There are lots of items from Pompeii in this museum. They removed wall paintings and entire mosaic floors and took them to Naples.
Temple and Forum area.

House with fancy back garden.

Theater

Bar

Mosaic floor
Mosaic floor

Fresco painted walls




In one area we saw two "bodies". During early excavations of the site, occasional voids in the ash layer had been found that contained human remains. One archaeologist realised these were spaces left by the decomposed bodies and so he devised the technique of injecting plaster into them to perfectly recreate the forms of Vesuvius's victims. What resulted were highly accurate and eerie forms of the doomed Pompeiani who failed to escape, in their last moment of life, with the expression of terror often quite clearly visible. They were very interesting to see.




The ancient Roman bath was very interesting. The rooms were completely intact. There was the cold bath room and the steam bath room and the changing rooms and some other rooms. The marble around this large bath tub was in perfect condition.
This room in the bath was really neat and had little sculptures all around the wall.

This is the outside of the large amphitheater.
This is part of the interior of the amphitheater.

The city just went on and on. There was no way you could see everything in one full day, let alone 2 days. In three hours, we saw what we could and felt pretty satisfied on everything we saw.


We were pretty tired after we got back to the hotel and all we wanted to do was have a pizza delivered to our room. Ha Ha!! The hotel guy looked at me pretty strange and said no, there wasn't a place in town to deliver pizza. But he said another local restaurant was open tonight and we could eat there and they could pick us up.

We were so excited. The restaurant was way up on the top of the cliff. The view was amazing but the food was 10 times better. This man came up to our table and said tonight we would not be seeing a menu. His Mom and Dad are the cooks at the restaurant and they had prepared several selections that would be served to us as an appetizer course, a pasta course, a grilled meat course, and then dessert.

The appetizers alone were way too much food. They brought out 12 dishes of food along with the house wine and bread. Everything was new and different and very good. The pasta course was my favorite. Homemade ravioli, stuffed shells and more. Lily had mentioned that she was hungry for spaghetti so they brought her this humongous plate of spaghetti. She took a couple of bites and then was completely stuffed. She even felt a little nauseous, she had eaten so much.

Then the grilled meat came. The plate was about 20 inches in diameter and full of all kinds of grilled meats. We were already stuffed but we tried to taste a few things. We hardly put a dent in the dish. Dessert was still to come. They also gave John and I a shot of Lemoncello! Yummy! I wouldn't even know what this is had it not been for my brother, Terry. He made Lemoncello at Christmas and we had a shot of it on New Year's Eve. His tasted much sweeter. I liked his better.

Somehow we managed to eat most of the dessert. They only sent out really small samples of about 5 desserts. Poor Lily didn't eat any dessert. She was really feeling stuffed. I think she was worrying that she might throw up, especially after this morning. I spent a good portion of the night in the restaurant bathroom with her trying to calm her down.

This was a truly great experience to eat in this local, Mom and Pop, restaurant. It was a true hightlight to an awesome week. Tomorrow we fly home.

Positano Day 2 of Rome trip

Today I had the BEST orange EVER. Driving into Positano yesterday we drove past orange and lemon groves. We enjoyed the sweetest, freshest, juiciest oranges from the local grocery. They had lemons the size of a football. I wish I would have taken a picture.

Today we woke to beautiful blue skies. It was still pretty cold though.

This morning at breakfast the girls saw a stray cat sitting on the ledge eating some cat food that someone had left for it. They wanted to go outside and pet it. John enjoyed telling them that they shouldn't touch the cat. It probably had fleas and would probably bite them. I told them the cat won't hurt them and encouraged them to go on outside.

This is a picture of a terrified Lia, who really wants to touch the cat.

Here is Lily helping Lia touch the cat. Pitiful!

Today we stayed in town. It was a little dead. It was definitely still off-season. We found only about 20% of the shops open. This was fine because I spent too much money in the few stores I went into. I noticed that the closed stores had phone numbers posted on the doors so you could call the owners and make an appointment to shop there. We found a shop with clothes for children. The girls both got skirts that were handmade in the town.

I found the prettiest pottery that is handmade in Positano.
I bought two large pieces and he said he could ship them to us through the Box Shop for around 60 euros. We thought it was reasonable. Well, after waiting 12 days for them I called the shipping company only to find out they shipped them to my mom and dad's house in Indiana for a whopping $192.00. Oh my goodness! They had my German address but also the address for the credit card which they were supposed to use and the Indiana address associated with it. UGH!

The girls were super excited to play in the Sea. It was pretty cold out but they still got their feet in the water and ran around for about an hour. I think their feet were numb.

We ate lunch at the only place we could find open. It was the same place we ate last night!! We haven't done very well with nutritous meals on this trip. Lily and Lia had nutella crepes!

Here are several pictures of the town, the church with gold dome, and the beach.






Tonight we couldn't imagine eating at that same restaurant again. The hotel arranged for us to eat at a local restaurant. The restaurant picked us up and brought us back to our hotel when we were finished. How cool is that? The restaurant was pretty good. Lily enjoyed her meal of seafood risoto, a lot. I really wanted a salad but it turned out to be a little weird. I thought I ordered fish for my main course but ended up with small lobsters and pasta. It was good.

We capped off the night with several games of Uno and Skip bo.

Ciao!

Rome Day Five - Drive to Positano, Italy

Why does it always seem like the things you packed multiplied and no longer fit into the luggage? It was tough repacking our stuff. We didn't even do any shopping except the italian purse that I bought and a few tshirts. We were ready early so we were just sitting in the room when the phone rang. The front desk informed me that the car had been waiting for us since 9:00. It was supposed to come at 10:00 as far as we knew. It was now 9:20 so we quickly got our things together. We didn't want our car to leave. They said they would't wait 15 minutes.

I guess Avis had called the hotel yesterday and left a message that they were coming at 9:00 instead of 10:00. The front desk gave me the message as I checked out. The clerk last night forgot to give it to us. UGH

We walked as fast as we could down to the McDonalds. By the way, another suitcase has been broken on a flight. Lia's suitcase wheel was completely broken off when we came back at Christmas time and now our large duffle has a broken wheel. I half dragged it down the cobbly sidewalks. You can just picture John looking back at me saying "hurry up!"

We had no problem getting the car. They did wait for us. I have just one word to say. Navigators! John accidently turned it off and when he turned it back on, he couldn't get it to work. We sat there for at least 30 minutes trying to get it to work. Just when I called Avis for help the thing started talking. So we just started driving. We did a lot of right turns and left turns all through Rome. When we crossed by the Autostrada, I knew there was a problem. I had to ask for help. John always makes me go in and ask. Anyway, we were heading to some place and it wasn't Positano. We finally got the Navi set correctly and after several mistakes, made it to Positano.

I was dizzzy and on the verge of motion sickness. I don't know how the girls didn't throw up. There were so many turns and curves! But the coast was soooooo beautiful. Positano is a charming city of the cliff side of the Almalfi Coast. The area is just gorgeous. The driving is just crazy. John said he was done driving. Tomorrow we would not go to Naples or Pompeii. We would hang out in Positano. I didn't blame him.

After a short rest we headed down to see the beach. To get down to the beach you have to walk down stairs while winding through the narrow streets. It was definitely nothing like anything I had ever experienced.


The Sea was pretty and looking up at the town was amazing. The beach is not sandy but small pebbles. The girls had fun "accidently" getting wet.


We ate dinner at a seaside restaurant. It looked like the only thing open. In fact the town, from what we could see, was a little dead. It was still off season so not much was happening. About the only excitement during dinner was when a stray black dog came into the restaurant and came up to our table. He then laid down right next to John. The girls were thrilled.

I wanted to take the town bus back up to our hotel but John and Lily wanted to walk the stairs. It was tough so I made sure I counted each step. There were 476 steps to get back up to our hotel!!

Enjoy these pictures, John took some excellent shots. There will be more beautiful pictures tomorrow.

Rome Day Four

Today was our last day in Rome. I had our nice Hotel guy call the car rental place to make sure they were still delivering the car to our hotel as previously planned and to confirm a time. Well, they can't drive past the camera on the Via Nationale street so they were going to meet us at the McDonalds at the Piazza Republica. This is one huge roundabout but at least it was close by. The time was set for 10:00 a.m. This is an aerial view of Rebublica from the internet. McD's is on the left corner in large building.

Today we did a lot of walking again. We wanted to go all around and try to see things we had not seen yet and we wanted to walk down by the Tiber River. I checked with my Rick steve's guidebook to get some ideas too.

We started the day by visiting the building we disliked so much, the Victor Emanuel Monument. I read that there was a tomb of the unknown soldier at the top of the stairs. It is too bad they built such a huge, out of place monument in the center of the ancient city.


Lily really wanted to see the Shewolf statue. She was fasinated by the story of the beginings of Rome told to us by our tour guide. Her is the quick story from Wikipedia. When the father of Romulus and Remus, Numitor, was overthrown by his brother Amulius, according to the founding myth, he ordered them to be cast into the Tiber River. The twins were rescued by a she-wolf who cared for them until a herdsman, Faustulus, found and raised them. The she-wolf from the legend of Romulus and Remus was regarded as a symbol of Rome from ancient times. Several ancient sources refer to statues depicting the wolf suckling the twins.

I read in the book that it is in a museum near the mayor's palace at Campidogilo. We were already planning to visit the National Museum of Rome at the end of our day so seeing this in another museum was out of the question. But we did find a small replica outside the Mayor's palace.

My Rick Steve's book mentioned that just past the She-Wolf is the il nasone ("the big nose"), a refreshing water fountain.


We then realized we had a great view of the Roman Forum from this ancient capitoline hill so we took several more pictures.



Next we headed to see the Circus Maximus. This is the large oval arena where they had chariot races and other entertainment. It was just a large grassy oval. There are very little ruins here so you have to use your imagination. Lily and Lia ran a lap around the oval. Today was another gorgeous day and not quite so chilly.

Next I checked the map to find a way to the River since we were so close. This brought us by the Santa Maria in Cosmedin church. Until looking it up right now, I didn't realize this church was so old. It date to the late 700's. In the porch, the greatest attraction is the Bocca della Verità, "Mouth of Truth." The large marble mask is an ancient Roman artifact that was either a drain cover or part of a fountain. It was placed here in the porch in 1632. Its name and popularity derive from a medieval legend that if a liar placed his hand in its mouth, it would be bitten off. The legend was charmingly tested by Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in the film Roman Holiday, only adding to its popularity. Today visitors line up in the porch for their turn to be photographed with their hand inside. Lily was excited to see it but there were a couple of bus loads of people in line to stick their hand in it and get a picture. John snapped this one in between someone's turn to see it.

We walked down by the river but weren't very impressed. The river in the winter was kind of ugly and there seemed to be a lot of trash in the river banks. So we made our way back into the city. We saw another old church built right into Roman ruins.
They had a tour of the underground temple ruins but John didn't want to do it. We saw a few other ruins as headed to the museum which was on the opposite side of town at Piazza Republica.

We ate lunch at a nice italian cafe. Finally!! I had really good pizza. I ordered it margarita too which was just cheese and this also helped. Sometimes the meat was not that great or made the pizza watery. It was yummy.

The National Museum of Rome was good and not too big. It had several sculptures and lots of busts of Emperors. There was also several mosaic floors and even some ancient wall frescos. It was interesting.
This is a mosaic floor removed from an ancient Roman house or bath.

This is the bronze Hellenistic Prince. It is missing the original spear and eyes.

Here is the famous Discobolus, or discus thrower. The first discus thrower is from Greece sculpted in bronze. Here we saw the original Roman version. The original is the one missing pieces. When it was found, it was missing several pieces. The full figure is a replica of what it would have completely looked like.



I am always in love with the ancient wall frescoes that have been found and displayed in this museum. Here is one.


Tonight we decided to head back to Trevi Fountain to get some good souvenirs. Lily just had to get a Rome sweatshirt. I sware these Rome streets just don't make sense when you look at a map. It looked so simple on how to get there but of course we ended up missing our street and got a little lost. Luckily we could follow signs pointing the way to the fountain since it is a main attraction. We just had a little extra walking along the way! The girls found a good place to get gellato. Lily threw another coin in the fountain. She really wants to come back someday.