Naples to Rome

We finally finished up in Naples, having seen the ruins of Pompeii, the Certosa di San Martino (a monstery more like a palace) and St Elmo's Castle which is on a hilltop with impressive panoramic views of Naples. Pompeii is incredible in and of itself, but it is fascinating to see such an old civilisation that was so advanced.

Our stay in Naples was characterised by a small hotel room with no airconditioning (coupled with three days of oppressive heat and humidity), one wheel on Judith's case breaking (under warranty in Australia, not in Italy), Judith's visa card being cancelled while trying to extend credit on Skype in Italian (coupled with the hotel phone not working and a rather confusing public telephone system), and being situated in a rather "seedy" part of town.

Below are photos of the monastery and the castle Elmo overlooking Naples.

We left Naples by train on Saturday, but the train was delayed 35 minutes because someone had not labelled the carriages properly and there were two carriage "eight"s and no carriage "nine"! To say that the resulting confusion was chaos is to not use the English language accurately, to say the least, as there were approximately sixty Italians loudly arguing and gesticulating and Judith and I trying to make sense of the situation and find our seat. It was with much relief that we finally found our seat and sat down - particularly after carrying Judith's case because of the *$!%&!*! broken wheel.

We finally got to Rome 35 minutes late and got a taxi to our apartment. The apartment is no more than two minutes from the Pantheon, is nice and roomy with a kitchen and bathroom and is in a fantastic part of town as we can walk to almost all of the significant sites. The only drawback is that the bed is very hard and is situated on a mezzanine arrangement which is so low that you cannot stand up. But best of all, it has air-conditioning.

We are looking forward to a comfortable, relaxing and interesting week in Rome.