The Lisa and Scott blog now officially finds us in Rome, but we will hold off for a few moments and get you up to date.

Let’s us talk about Pompeii!

We did not arrive in Pompeii until 10:00pm at night. The hotel was a block from the train station, which is nice when you enter a new city without a map and it is dark out. For those planning to stay in Pompeii, I give my personal shout out for Hotel Diana. The place was a bit small, but the breakfast was great and the staff was friendly. Tell your friends: Hotel Diana in Pompeii.

Now to the ruins! The site is huge, probably at least a mile wide and a mile long. This makes it a tough day when it is an Italian summer, but it was still worth the trip. We rented the audio guides and supplemented them with the Rick Steve’s tour in our book, which helped us find most of the larger sites to check out. Lisa had a great time checking out much of the architectural concepts from 79 a.d. that are still standards today, while really enjoyed the theater that was almost built…and the Mount Vesuvius blew. (It really is quite a site to see an entire city that was once a flourishing city with lots of people! It is amazing how many concepts of building we still use in today’s construction… FACINATING. I can only imagine what it must be like as an archaeologist uncovering history that is preserved.
Some of the walls still had paintings on the wall and the stone mosaics are so detailed and STILL look beautiful. Talk about being built to last, a detail American construction has yet to learn. You also notice that the rich people lived among the poor, one house may take up and entire city block and then the smaller homes are surrounding this home. Lastly, you felt an incredible amount of sorrow when you found the people who suffocated under the ash to their death. One of the bodies looked like they were praying to god up until their last breath.)

It was a long and hot day, but still totally worth the trip. (Very hot day)

That night, we went to eat in the a really nice Trattoria in the center of Pompeii. Our service was excellent and the food was great. Next to us, a couple sits down and as they are checking out the menu, I hear a reference to “Dumb and Dumber” come from one of them. Needless to say, we talked to them for the next hour. Ray and Kate are from Australia and making a trek through Europe, and stopping whenever it seems they can. Ray is a big time surfer, and is desperate to surf Mavericks in the California so hopefully we will hear from them when they make it to California.

Sadly, Lisa and I had to catch a train for Rome at 7:00am the next day, so we became adults and went home early L

Next Day: ROME!!

Our first day in Rome was pretty uneventful from a vacation point of view, but a lot happened. Our hotel had a broken air conditioner, so they bumped us up to a four star a few blocks down. A nice place, but the roof top terrace closes before sunset….but the best a.c. we have had on the trip.

We decided we wanted beer, so we ate at an Irish Pub down the street and realized that the Irish can’t make food in any town, albeit Rome, New York, or San Ramon (Or Denver). The beer was great.

We made a decision the next day to skip public transportation for the rest of the trip and rent scooters in Rome. Yes, yes, everyone says it is crazy to drive in Rome, but it seemed no different than driving in San Francisco. Truth is: it is pretty tough. The whole town is a one way street, which makes it tough for navigation. It took us about 60 minutes to get about 10 minutes to see the Pantheon today. I think it will be a bit easier tomorrow, since we seemed to have driven on every street in central Rome today.

This afternoon we did a tour of the Vatican museum. The tour was only 8 people, so we got a lot more out of this tour than previous ones. The sistine chapel is as incredible as you think it is. Everywhere you look, there was another amazing fresco and story from the bible. You would have to be there for at least 3 or four days just to take in all of it.

It is now dark, and we are running out of wine, so I have to go. Hopefully we can get in another message before we leave, but since our last full day is Saturday, we might opt to scooter a little longer than come home to highlight the day.

Until the next message,

Ching Ching!