Day 11 or Day 3 in Sorrento, Volcanos and ancient ruins

As I said, we're into the relaxation part of the trip. Today we slept in, and plan on heading to the beach, that's our only plan. The weather is looking great so far, it should be about 82 and clear sky's. We'll be taking a bus down the Amalfi coast to a beach that sounds really nice.

The trip from Rome to Sorrento was fun, I drove about 3/4 of the way. Most of which was highway, but there doesn't seem to be a maximum speed. The signs are posted with Minimums for each lane. The high was are wide with nice straight aways for the most part, and truck tend to stay in the right lane. We passed through Naples on our way to Sorrento, and and was very dirty and congested looking. In the pictures from our trip to Mont Vesuvius, you can see some shots of it. After we passed through Naples we got dumped onto some very narrow busy streets, you need to drive aggressive, and you quickly realize there aren't many rules. I actually had a real lot of fun. We eventually reach our hotel, which sits on the water in a tiny section of fishing village.

Sorrento is about the size of Portsmouth NH. Lots of shops and restaurants which leads to a few small marinas, where fisherman head just off shore to net Sardines and the catches of the day. A few menus just say "1 fish" which changes daily depending on the catch, you can't get fresher than that. It's a very nice little town, seems to be a lot more locals and less tourists, so it's been a nice change.

Yesterday we took a day trip to Mont Vesuvius and Pompeii. It was a 30 minute train ride to Pompeii and an hour bus trip to Mont Vesuvius. The ride up Vesuvius was really beautiful, the views were spectacular. Naples actually looked really nice, nestled against some mountains and lead to the Mediterranean Sea. The bus driver pointed out the Canyon created by the Eruption lava which spilled down the side. We eventually arrived at a staging area where you start the walk to the top. The walk up was mostly soil surrounded by volcanic rock. It was a very steep but quick hike to the top, less than a half hour. At the top you can look into the top, The crater was gigantic. You could make out the different layers of rock and see steam seeping out. It was a very cool sight and also scary to think it's natural.

After that, we hopped the bus back to Pompeii, so we could stroll around the ruins a bit before heading back to the hotel. Pompeii is dated pre-Christ, so I really wasn't sure what to expect, history is very interesting to me, but I really have a hard time with dating civilization. At any rate, the ruins were spectacular, and in surprisingly great condition. They have been doing a lot of work preserving and restoring some of the areas. The streets were truly impressive, cobbles stones streets with curbs and sidewalks. A lot of the side walks still had tiles and marble on them. Some of the stores still had oven like structures and artwork painted on the walls. Really amazing stuff. There were a few theaters and a Colosseum. I couldn't believe the shape these were in, what a great place. They say it takes a week to see everything there is to see, we saw about 2 hours worth and were wiped out. Time to head back to the hotel enjoy some happy hour, then get dinner. Big day of sun and sea ahead of us.

I hope all is well with everyone! You're all missed. The Nigros say the same. We're on our last few days and going to make the most of them. Thanks for following, I thing the rest of my updates may be filled with "we relaxed here" "we ate this" and "we drank that" Talk to you soon.