17th September: Cortona to Pompei

Sadly our time in Tuscany has come to an end, and that means the entire holiday is getting close to the end! We’re pretty tired, I have to admit, and so it’s been good to have a week of some downtime in Tuscany. The hot baths have gone a long way towards reenergizing us. We have five nights in Sicily coming up and Pompei is about the halfway mark, so we have decided to spend two nights there, which gives us the whole day tomorrow to explore the ruins.

The drive there was close to five hours long and was pretty uneventful. Pompei itself was interesting to drive through – I’d describe it as rather run down, but I don’t mean to be insulting in any way. Like the whole of Italy, it is full of very, very old buildings, and so not everything will be well maintained. There were very few modern buildings at all, and so it all looked a little worn in. Our hotel was simple but clean, but with the smallest shower stall I have ever seen. You put your elbows up when washing your hair and you hit the sides of the stall, constantly. The best thing about the hotel though was that it was family run – very family run, and so it was very homely and welcoming.

It was pretty late by the time we made it to the hotel, and so after some showers and settling in, we headed out for dinner. The hotel recommended a restaurant, and when we got there, there were two parts to it; the restaurant itself, and a buffet section. We wrongly chose the restaurant part and in the middle of a terrible main course, looked over to see the buffet totally filled with locals. We should have guessed it was going to be an ordinary meal when the house red came out as a fizzy lambrusco.

Dinner over with – after the cook came and played piano for a while and then spent her time greeting and talking to friends – we headed off for a little walk. We came to the piazza where the Cathedral is, and discovered the whole of Pompei, out on a Saturday night, strutting their stuff. There were whole families, people of all ages, all dressed up and either walking around and around looking at each other, or sitting back on park benches watching everyone walking around. There were teenagers making out everywhere, on the edges of the fountain, on any spare benches, and up against every tree or building that had a dark nook.

We sat on a little wall for a while and watched the parade, and then headed off to grab a gelati for the walk home. It was quite an interesting end to the night, it was as if we had seen a side of the Italian social scene that we hadn’t seen before. I had read everywhere how the ruins at Pompei had lots of phallic symbols, and it was as if fertility and hooking up was still an important part of the culture here. All done under the watchful eye of Mama and Papa though of course!

~ There is no photo album for this one!