“Arrivederci “ Roma

On the road to Pompeii and the driving gets worse!!!

Once again morning arrived with a cacophony of traffic noise from the street below. Throwing open the shutters I welcomed the day, blue skies and warm sun once again.

On the pavements below people made their way to wherever it was they needed to be.... two priests, one young and one much older walked together deep in conversation....a very beautiful young girl wearing a mini skirt and high heels walked past them, as she passed the older priest turned and watched her.... in a very unpreistly way.. as she made her way down the street !!!!!

An elderly couple walked up the road opposite and stopped at the junction to look at a map.... they’re up early I thought... not being one for early rising myself I am always in awe of those who manage to be up and out before 9am!!! ( Yes, yes, I know .... you can stop rolling your eyes .... if God had intended us to get up at silly times he wouldn’t have invented comfy beds!

Anyway, they were joined by several more elderly people, leading me to believe that this was a geriatric tour.... which explained the early start as it would clearly take them all bloody day to get to any of the things worth seeing!!! Gradually the party grew as others joined the little huddle all looking confused as to which way they should go next...... finally bringing up the rear was the person who was obviously the guide.... I came to this conclusion because he was considerably younger than all the other people and also as he approached the huddle they seemed to heave a group sigh of relief and look hopefully to him for directions. He was very smartly dressed in a shirt, tie, blazer and very jaunty hat. The hat , I felt , was his take on the standard tour guide piece of stand out equipment , the thing that his party knew they had to follow....no chavvy umbrellas or flouncy flowers for him.... no, a dapper little Panama hat.

It was clear that his party were getting restless so he broke into a bit of a trot in order to reach them before they wandered off again.... in doing so his jaunty piece of headwear( no he wasn’t Japanese!!!! ) took off and landed in the road..... he swooped down on it and placed it back on his head only for it to sail off once again. Even from the 4th floor I could feel his frustration as he chased it for about ten feet , bless him, he caught the hat and then had to trot off again as a number of the party had struck out on their own.... presumably because they were concerned that if they didn’t get going they wouldn’t make it back to the hotel in time for dinner. Finally with the stragglers rounded up they all set off together with their well dressed guide back in control of his tour group and most importantly of his hat !!!!

At this point Dear Richard reminded me that breakfast finished at 10.30..... bloody cheek, it was only about 9am.... so I had to leave the entertainment of the pavement and pay attention to sorting out the mess that was my face and hair.... and here a word about my morning routine....... historically a bit of a marathon as I don’t like appearing in public looking anything but my best..... as the days have gone by my preparations for facing the world have been considerably pared down..... ( so now I can hear hysterical laughter......) there are several reasons for this transformation..... time spent being one of them.... hunger another.... but if I am completely honest... ( and when am I not???) .... half the time I can’t be assed!!! So now, after cleansing....still not taking my makeup off at night!!’who has time for that for f**ks sake !!!.......some Charlotte Tilbury moisturiser, a slick of pale .....not grey or green at the moment......eyeshadow , some eyeliner, a touch of blusher and LOADS of mascara , I am ready to go......20 mins tops!!! Mind you in that time Dear Richard has packed his case, cleared up the room and got ready himself.... and is still tapping his fingers waiting for me. .... I can’t bloody win!!!’

So off we went to breakfast where we found a table as far away from our fellow breakfasters as we could.... the reason for this was so that we could purloin some supplies for lunch..... well, we had a bit of a journey and in order to recoup some of the costs wasted on the shit hole why the heck not !!!! Yes it might be a bit chavvy.... but don’t judge...... we’ve got another 5 months to pay for yet!!!!! Dear Richard had the rucksack and we stuffed it with ham, cheese, rolls and tomatoes. Oh and a couple of hard boiled eggs for good measure!!!! And of course neither of us looked the least bit shifty as we did it!!!

Anyway, contraband on board we legged it upstairs.....don’t be daft... we used the lift...) collected our gear and went downstairs to wait for the valet to bring the car to the door. Sally Sat Nav programmed, we joined the road of death and set off for Pompeii. Naively we thought that on a Monday morning the traffic would be less mental , how stupid were we..... we were however getting used to the total disregard for the standard rules of the road and so although still open mouthed at the lunacy of Roman drivers we weren’t really surprised by anything that they did anymore. Once on the motorway we felt we could relax a little..... ha ha ... not a bloody chance.... and it seemed that as we went South, the driving became even more dangerous. Being rear ended was a constant fear...... it seemed that drivers could only overtake if they were close enough to the car in front to read the drivers inside leg measurements....and then there were the motorbikes.... overtaking on the inside, outside any side they could get round you on..... as we got closer to Pompeii the number of bikes grew and the number of heart stopping moments went off the scale.

Talking of things going off the scale the temperature was rising too....

Not that we were complaining..... it was still raining back in the UK so all was good .

After the debacle of the accommodation in Rome we were a little wary about the B and B we had booked in Pompeii and so when we found ourselves driving into a similarly scummy area our hearts were once more in our mouths...... and not without good reason as it turned out.....when we turned into the road in which our accommodation was located we looked at one another and decided there and then that if it was a shit hole we wouldn’t even bother to get out of the car. Guess what..... we pulled up outside what looked like another hostel.....paused for just long enough to re-programme Sally..... and left, driving as fast as we could towards the town centre.

We parked the Corsa and after about ten minutes, worked out (with the help of a passing Samaritan) how to pay for a ticket. Then, iPad in tow we sat in a cafe and looked at what was available at short notice for a two night stay in Pompeii. Not that much as it happened unless one was prepared to invest heavily.... which by then I was..... having experienced what being “economical” offered we were both disinclined to repeat the experience and so we booked into a lovely hotel, right in the centre of the town and only about ten yards from the entrance to the ruins we had come here to see. It was called Hotel Forum and as we pulled up outside I had stirrings of a memory from years ago......I knew before we went in that there was a garden with citrus trees on which grew the most enormous lemons I had ever seen.... and I was right.....I had stayed here before ......it was just as I remembered it, the lemon trees were still there, although I felt that the fruit wasn’t quite as enormous as it had been years ago!!!

We drove the Corsa through a narrow gateway and unloaded our bags.... there then followed some interesting manoevering as Dear Richard attempted to turn the car around in a very narrow space, lined with giant flower pots and shared with another vehicle parked very inconsiderately right in the way!!! Star that he is, said ninety two point turn was executed with no loss of garden ornaments or damage to either vehicle.Once parked “in a public car park nearby“ ( channeling Sally again!!!) we dumped our stuff and sat in the garden with a bloody big drink!!

And then we realised that the cousins of the biting bastards had emigrated south with us and were already feasting on our exposed flesh.....cue mad dash upstairs and complete body spraying with the repellant lotion. Dinner time approached and so we set off in search of sustenance. Sadly in the touristy areas it seems to be assumed that all people want to eat is pizza or spaghetti Bolognese and so it is very difficult to find anything which goes off piste as it were and offers a different taste of Italian cuisine. Eventually we found a restaurant which offered a few alternatives and so ( I was bloody starving by this time...... and yes I did need a drink...) we went inside. Now I’m not sure if it’s us or if the Italians and their visitors just don’t eat early..... well I know the Americans do but they must already have been and gone.... anyway we had the restaurant to ourselves which you would imagine would result in fast, efficient service.... not so my friends..... in the time that it took for even the wine to arrive I could have had a four course banquet on the table..... when it finally made an appearance the food was good but I was so hungry that I had already demolished the bread and then in desperation started on my arm!!!!

And so , well fed and relieved that we were staying in a hotel with running water and no shared toilets or dining rooms, we made our way upstairs and to bed......some traffic noise but that was nothing compared to the church bells which seemed to chime in celebration of every minute that passed and then went bonkers at the quarter and half hours.....don’t even get me started on what happened at the hour!!!! I fell asleep dreaming of giant lemons and mosquitoes..... yes they had managed to get me before we got sprayed up!!!! ..... oh and hoping that Vesuvius, which was towering over us didn’t have any plans for erupting during the night.....