WE WUZ ROBBED

Well, today we left the campsite and went to the supermarket before we went on the drive of death. Whilst shopping, after about 30mins, an assistant came along and grabbed our trolly and beckoned us to go with her. When we got to the front door there were some security guards there who told us Blossom had been broken into. We got back to find that the van, which was parked in the middle of the car park in broad daylight, had been ransacked.  We were devastated. 2 computers, 1 phone, 2 GHD hairstarightners, Nintendo DS, TV, Media player, Kindle, sat nav, jewellery,  hard driv, 3 iPODS etc etc. all gone. The supermarket guards had caught it on cctv . The police told us that they had followed the car with the thieves in it, 2 Hungarians, and the theives had crashed the car whilst being chased but the police had managed to recover all our stuff from the car. We had to follow the police to the station and we spent the next 4 hours making a list of what we thought was missing and then verifying the items they had recovered were actually ours. We waited for an interpreter for at least an hour, because she had to get to Pompei from Naples, and her English was as good as our Italian. We gave a statement which the Police man lost on the computer and we had to go through it all again and then signed it, but we don’t actually know what it says because it was never read back to us but we have a copy.  Finally we got our stuff back, think it is all there, and had to still go back to the supermarket for some shopping but this time because we didn’t know the way we got a police escort, didn’t make any difference to the Italian drivers as they even cut up the police cars.

Thankfully there is minimal damage, the door into the van can’t be opened from the outside so we will have to watch we don’t lock ourselves out. They had twisted the bracket for the TV to get it off the wall so that needs a bit of attention and one of the wall cupboards handles has been broken.

We have now stripped the bed, as they had been climbing all over it, put everything back into the cupboards and had some food as the last time we ate was 11 hours ago. Oh yes we are also having some beer and wine!!

Drive of death tomorrow.

TTFN

Mount Vesuvius

Pompeii

Rosalba Vendrame vineyard

Thursday we moved on towards Pompeii. We stopped over night at another vineyard, Rosalba Vendrame, near Pontina, just south of Latina. Of course, in the morning we had to do the wine tasting again and buy some more wine.

Friday we travelled to Pompeii, I have never seen such bad driving in all my life on the way there, scary roads. Anyway got there safe and sound and the site is about 100yards from the entrance to the ruins of Pompeii and we have a train station outside the campsite as well.

Saturday we went into the ruins and spent over 5 hours going round the site and still only saw about half of it. This place is fantastic. You can hardly believe how the people of Pompeii were living 2000 years ago compared to 2000 years ago in Britain. The houses were huge and the temples had columns over 11 meters high. The buildings have beautiful frescoes, with the colours still really bright, complete mosaics and outstanding sculptures and garden ornaments.  There is an amazing amphitheatre and two theatres. The two theatres are mostly complete but a lot of the seating is missing from the amphitheatre. This is a must visit if you are in the area.

Sunday we went up Mount Vesuvius, you firstly get on a bus that takes you to the foot of the mountain, then into a huge 4x4 truck/bus up to 1050 meters and then you have to walk the rest of the way to the crater. The walk takes about 45 mins at a good pace, which was just as well because we had to be back on the bus in an hour and a half. There wasn’t any heat but there was a little bit of smoke coming out of the side of the crater. 

Today, Monday 28th May, we took the train to Sorrento hoping to get a boat trip along the Amalfi coast but apparently they only run on a Thursday. We took a sightseeing tour in an old trolly bus on wheels. The driver was playing a tambourine to the music which was playing on the bus. At times he didn’t even have a hold of the steering wheel and even stood up to sing, yes while driving! Only in Italy. We didn’t see much more of Sorrento as it started to rain quite heavily.

Moving on tomorrow we are going to do the drive of death along the Amalfi coast line, will let you know next time if we have survived.

TTFN

The Pantheon

Me on the Spanish Steps, it's a bit like where's Wally

Do you think this will catch on with the police in Aberdeen

The Coliseum - It'll look fantastic when it's finished

The Trevi Fountain

St. Peter's Basilica

The Sistine Chapel

The Vatican Museums