(written 16/4/2006, in Ohrid, Macedonia, by
Liz)
Up early again, we packed up the tent and headed out of Sorrento.
Our plan was to drive to Amalfi, and spend the morning seeing the
Amalfi Coast, but the weather was truly against us - the further we went, the worse the weather got. When we had all our fog lights on, we decided that sight seeing wasn't going to be too productive, so we turned the car around (that bit was easy - misleading road signs had lead us to a dead end) and drove to Pompeii.
At Pompeii, the sun was out and shining, but you could still see the heavy cloud cover in the distance where we had been.
After parking the car, we stopped at a café for breakfast including delicious freshly squeezed blood-orange juice, before crossing the road and heading into the ruins of
Pompeii.
We were given free entry to the ruins, as they were having a Cultural Week, so we payed for some audio guides (which turned out to be a bit rambling) and then spent a few hours wandering all around.
I had no idea what a big site it is, and a lot of the ruins are not even open to the public. There is a lot to see, but the highlights for us were the two ampitheatres, the colliseum and one of the large houses complete with garden. Some of the ruins are just walls and nothing else, but a few are quite amazing, with detailed frescoes on the walls inside.
Mount Vesuvius is not far away, but due to smog, we couldn't really see it too well from Pompeii.
Back outside, we bought a very refreshing frozen orange juice and then drove out of Naples, heading East.
A few hours and one roadside food stop later, we arrived in the small town of Matéra.
We found a nice hotel, went to the nearby internet cafe and then spent a while wandering around the town.
Dinner was memorable - we found a quiet little pizza restaurant just off the main square. I decided to try a 'Four Seasons' Pizza, Tim decided to try 'this one' (points to menu). I laughed long and loud, when two tasty pizza's turned up - mine with mushrooms, ham, olives, capsicum, and Tim's - with brocolli and spinach piled all over it!! Just in case you don't know, Tim's most detested food is brocolli, very closely followed by spinach, and as much as I have tried to make these two foods tempting, he just doesn't like them. So to have ordered his very own large pizza covered in 'green stuff' by accident was very funny.
But, being the lovely wife that I am, I swapped pizzas, and the day was saved :) I must say, I am a big fan of 'green stuff', but even a pizza full of it was a bit much for me, and it was the only pizza I didn't completely devour in Italy.
Tim hasn't been quite so keen to choose random menu items since :)
(Note by
Tim: In my defense I ate about a third of the green stuff pizza, although Liz will never admit it!)