Traveling Souls: Southern Italy - Rome, Isernia, Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast

September 19-20

After our beautiful day in Assisi we headed for hotel in the mountains near Isernia (thanks to a wedding present from Pat and Lanny!). The place was beautiful but finding it was impossible, there were no signs, just small roads leading us through the mountains-it took us a while (2 hours). After being on the road, constantly thinking about where we were going to be resting our heads each night--it was great to have a week reservation and time to just relax. I could actually unpack some things from my backpack and we had the luxury of being able to cook in the apartment kitchen. The next day was spent sleeping and eating - all day!

We did venture out for dinner at in the hotel and befriended the waiters who gave us a great guitar serenade/jam session/sing-along later that evening--they did not speak any English and we did not speak any Italian. It was a fun evening full of hand gestures and laughing.

September 21

Pompeii is defiantly one of those places that you should see before you die. Its the most well preserved ancient city as a result of the massive volcanic eruption of Mt Vesuvius. For 1700 years this city lay beneath ash and debris until it was accidentally rediscovered in 1748. Alan and I spent the first half of our day there, exploring the ruins and hiding from the rain that appeared to be following us.

After Pompeii we headed for the Amalfi Coast, an area that I want to go back to at some point in my life. It is truly breathtaking with its vertical towns and beautiful coastline, think the PCH in Cali times 10! We stopped in a few different towns, drinks in Positano, dinner in Amalfi. We tried to leave before it got dark because the driving is some of the most challenging that we have ever experienced. Everyone drives so fast and the hairpin turns are full of blind spots with barely enough room for cars to pass let alone the buses. We took what we thought would be a short cut back to the highway, but it took us through more winding up mountain roads. The crest of the route gave us a surreal view of Naples at night, one of the best sites and the possibly the only time Naples could look beautiful, far away and at night. It made the white knuckle driving worth it.

September 23-24

After another day of rest, and to escape the rain, Alan and I were ready to go out and do some exploring. We decided to do an overnight trip to Rome, we got up very early, parked our rental car outside the city and took the subway in. We were both very impressed by Rome, not only is the architecture beautiful with every building having some unique aspect it was so clean! The first day was spent at the Colosseum and the Roman Forum, we walked to the Pantheon, stayed in a dorm hostel that had a free pasta dinner (we ready to be done with pasta for a while!). Again we dragged ourselves out of bed early in the morning to head over to St. Peters and the Vatican Museum- hands down the best museum either of us have been to, each room was from a different era and was built and displayed as if you were in that time period, the Sistine Chapel wasn't too bad either.