Herculaneum

This morning we dined in style at the Hotel Victoria - white linen tablecloths, pastries, freshly squeezed orange juice and bacon and eggs however you liked them, or however you could manage to get the waiter to understand! It seems that in most Italian hotels breakfast is included. Interestingly, the trees along the street outside the hotel are orange trees, fully laden with fruit. Quite amazing to see.

New town built on top

We negotiated our way to Ercolando, with a few detours along the way - even with a GPS driving is tricky and everything happens so fast. Ercolando is where the city of Herculaneum has been excavated after being buried as a result of the eruption of Mt Vesuvius. The excavation is smaller than Pompei but is fascinating to visit. One of the most amazing things was seeing the ‘new’ city built above the excavations with washing on lines and normal life going on. At the bottom of the site is were the original beach used to be - it is about 400m from the current coastline and the bones of people trying to escape are preserved along the original shoreline. The weather was glorious, warm and sunny. It must be sweltering in summer and, although there were quite a few people at the sight, it wasn’t too busy.

We decided to head to Caserta this afternoon, find the hotel when it wasn’t rush-hour, and visit the royal palace today, so that we would have more time tomorrow, to travel north. We found the palace and parking, but it is closed on Tuesdays - best laid plans. We found a shopping centre and an enormous supermarket so stocked up on food. Getting back to the hotel was a challenge with rush hour traffic - Italian style - and all of the challenges that go with driving here.

It was nice to have a relaxed end to the day. After visiting the palace tomorrow, we head north and a looking forward to spending a night in a more rural setting, hopefully with less traffic!

Food storage

Sitting in the bath house

strolling through 2000 year old buildings 

Ancient roads - chariot anyone?