Day 9

We spent a couple of hours round the hotel pool then had itchy feet so decided to go to Pompeii.

There's a villa nearby called Poppea that we visited first. Again it was another casualty of the volcano but this place was only excavated in the sixties and is a real gem 

You can pretty much get as close as you want to any of this place - they seem to trust that visitors will respect the history of the place - quite refreshing idea.

We got to Pompeii at about 4.00 when the visitor numbers had died down a bit - nice to roam around without getting caught up with parties of Germans or Americans waving their cameras about and getting in everyone's way.

I was really impressed with the site - it is vast 

I just like cats

Amphitheatre

 A bit of ancient graffiti 

You think your road is in bad condition! Ruts made by carts

This is the sign for the brothel - use your imagination.....

The statues look spectacular - but they are all only about 20 years old

Amazing day out - looking and touching stuff that is at least 2000 years old. We were talking to some American tourists and you have to feel a bit sorry for them - a massive country with different climates and every kind of landscape - I asked what heritage sites they have and they couldn't come up with anything older than about 300 years and they weren't too sure about that - not even one cave painting in the whole of the US. We should charge them double to look at ours!