Clara's new bedroom

Clara has redecorated her bedroom in pristine white. It has taken 3 days, She had a little help from Grace on Monday and mum on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

It looks lovely and clean and fresh.

Just needs an new wardrobe and desk now and some accessories to finish it off.

Going home

Waiting at Naples airport for a 10:20 flight to Stansted we discussed or Italian adventure.

Clara summed it up as tiring, lots of sight seeing. She enjoyed the day at the park as it was so relaxing.

Cam's view of Rome in a sentence was that it was hot and cool. He enjoyed all of it.

Jon said it was beautiful, historic, classy, hot 'Waterstones'... His favourite city visited so far.

Chris loved the city, the sights and the relaxed attitude of the Italians...and their driving!!   Pompei was amazing, Vatican City incredible.

We walked a total of 95km over the week - phew!

Would we return?  Yes..  In a less hot

month than July 😂

Hello England.

Beach day

A hot train journey on the railway from Pompei Scavi (ruins) to Sorrento this morning.  We walked down a very steep road

 to St Peter's beach and rented 3 deck chairs for €10 each and an umbrella for €5 and spent the day topping up the tan and being mermaids in the sea.  Lovely, cool and relaxing.

Pompei and Vesuvius

A day at Pompei looking at the amazing ruins left by the eruption of Mt Vesicius in 79 AD. The hot ash and lava flow took 0.5 seconds, travelling at 80km/h, to reach Pompei leaving no chance of escape and preserving the town and its inhabitants.

after lunch in McDonalds, air con!,  we booked a trip up Mt Vesuvius  a taxi collected us from town and drove up a steep and winding mountain to about 1 km from the top. We walked the last bit, it was really, really steep and the road was slippery from all the dust and volcanic Peebles and scree. The views from the top were stunning.

Dinner in Pompei.

Rome to Naples

We had booked an Interitalia train from Rome Termini to Naples Centrale leaving at 12:36. We arrived at Termini at around 11:15 and found the strangest queuing system ever to collect our tickets!  We had to join a queue to be given a number, to join a second queue to see someone to print the tickets we'd bought online. After waiting for an hour (and being none the wiser about the numbering system for the tickets) we spoke to a gentleman who printed us our tickets with 10 minutes to spare. We boarded a very full and hot train and departed for a 2:35 minute journey to Naples. 

When we arrived at Napoli Centrale we were going to get another train to Pompei but there were so many people that it would have been difficult to board with our suitcases. We got a taxi instead and arrived at Hotel Hisagi around 4:00 in the afternoon

We have two rooms, Cam and Clara's twin room is the biggest of the two!

Pompei is a 15 minute walk and we are going to get some Pompein dinner soon.

Botanical Gardens

A much more relaxing day today; we left the apartment around mid day having had a much needed lie in and restful morning and took the metro to Lipanto. We walked passed the Castel d'Angelo and along the river to the botanical gardens, which were not easy to find the entrance to!  We had a nice picnic lunch and Cam and Clara played under a sprinkler to cool down.

We then had a stroll round the Gardens and saw the bamboo forest, the Japanese Garden and a nice fountain. 

After the gardens we crossed the river and headed towards the Pantheon 

Finally we headed towards the Trevi Fountain - it was being restored!  Clara threw her 3 coins into the temporary pool.  This is our last night in Rome: shall we return?

Vatican City

We'd pre-booked tickets to the Vaticn museums and the Sistine Chapel for 10:30 so we could bypass the ridiculously long queue of people not so prepared.

We started with the Sistine chapel so Jon could take off the long trousers that he wore to respect the holiness of the place.  It was awesome. Michelangelo's ceiling and frescos so beautiful.

Next a wander round the museums and a chance to check out the Pope's cars.

Then we left for some lunch and went to St Peter's square - again it was awesome.

We queued to have our bags checked so we could go into the Basilica - wow

Then went up 551 steps to the top of the Cupola - we stopped half way to see close up the inside of the Dome. 

It was very hot and quite claustrophobic going up but amazing views across Rome from the top.

Saw some of the Swiss Guard on the way out - they didn't scare Clara!

All recruited from Switzerland, aged between 19 and 31, at least 5'6 and unmarried despite the outfit designed by Michel Angelo. 

Dinner at Joseph's near our apartment. Gorgeous steaks, massive portions, fast service.