Chris and Linda Italy 2025

Drove to Naples yesterday, Saturday and it was a sunny day, and really warm; warmest of the whole trip. Got to our "hotel" room by 2:00 p.m., caught our breath after the drive and then returned the rental car at the airport.  A 10 minute walk back to our place.  Went out to dinner at the Trattoria du Papa nearby which was an interesting way to spend the evening - no pictures available! Sometime we'll tell you all about it.  On Sunday took the bus to the central train station in Naples  and then hopped a train to Pompeii to join a guided tour of the site we had booked.  Of course an amazing, vast place and on a sunny Sunday it was just jam packed. The massive eruption that completely covered Pompei occurred in AD 79, though the place was inhabited since the 7th century BC. Incredible that you can still see frescoes, original lead pipes for heating and transporting water, etc. Hard to describe it all but a few pics:   One of the few plaster casts of the human...

Walter and Veronika joined us Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday was a little cloudy with some showers in the afternoon but then Thursday and Friday were sunny and relatively warm.  We spent most of the time hiking various trails in the mountains around us.  Walter and Veronika left early Friday afternoon and headed for Matera.   Tomorrow we head towards Naples where we are going to spend a couple of nights stay close to the airport.  We hope to get downtown on Sunday but then our flight home is on Monday.  How did that happen?

 Sunday was our last full day at Matera.  Decided to take a bus into the city of Bari and wander around the old city on what turned into a fine sunny day.  Managed to fit in a lovely seafood lunch ('cause there has been a shortage of gastroporn around here - how about pasta with roasted octopus!)  Monday was a day of a long drive from Matera over to Tortorella in the Cilento district.  Our place is well up in the hills.  Some amazing drives on twisty mountain roads to get there  (at one point the GPS told us we were 7.1 km from our destination but the actual driving distance on those roads was just over 18 km. - not too many straight streches!)  On Tuesday we did a little shopping run and then had a short hike around our rental.  Waiting for the arrival of our Swiss friends who are going to join us her for a few days.