27th Oct: Come Back to Sorrento!

Yes, beautiful climate, lovely cliff-top views, handsome town etc., but not exactly dragging us back. Did we miss something?

Now this below is much more interesting. Jane’s really taken with it. These small 50cc transports are to be found all over Italy. It’s called an APE 50, steered with motorbike handlebars, and designed for driver only but frequently accommodates two Italians. So, scrap our fancy cars & let’s all have one of these. At a stroke, it’s the energy crisis solved, speeding offences solved, junk transportation problems solved. It’s also the ultimate social leveller. (Metallic paint, turbo, 3 wheel drive versions, all not allowed, but perhaps a covered wagon version to transport the family would be permissible).

25th Oct: Up Pompeii!

We’re now staying near Sorrento and today visited Pompeii: 20 minutes on the train.

The scale of Pompeii was far greater than we expected, as was the state of preservation, all due to being covered by 6 metres of volcanic ash. The culprit was Mt. Vesuvius, shown in the background and me in the forum. Doesn’t look very threatening, does it? (The volcano, not me!)

The town was laid out on a grid system and what you see here is the main shopping street, complete with traffic calming measures! These big stones were actually stepping stones for pedestrians to cross the street in wet weather leaving gaps sufficient for cartwheels to pass.

This is an example of a shop selling food. The food was stored in jars sunk into the counter top and could, if necessary, be kept warm by heating the jar from underneath. Fast food Pompeii style. We weren’t able to determine where the Clarks shoes agency was.

The houses & gardens of the wealthy were lavishly decorated. These are some examples of the murals.


Can't decide if this guy is having a sly fag or picking his nose.









Building Methods. What looked to be solid stone usually wasn’t. They built most structures in brick, or a mixture of brick and stone, and then faced that over with mortar and/ or plaster. The decaying wall photo shows how these layers are built up.


Entertainment: the Coliseum. This is the oldest one known, and you can see its’ interior scale with reference to the two modern-day posers.

The exterior of the building should be even more awe-inspiring, but actually looks like a disused victorian railway viaduct.

Finale: an atmospheric temple, jazzed up a bit by the photo-programme.





In summary, Pompeii was a most impressive place.

20th Oct: Italians Observed

Except in the cities, the Italians don’t seem to go in much for normal width pavements. It could be because, even when provided, the locals walk in the road. The Council therefore constructs a pavement one foot wide, thereby discharging their duty, but making it more comfortable to walk in the road. The chicken or the egg?

Near Genoa, on our way to Tuscany, we stopped for lunch in the lorry park of the motorway services. Parked next to us was a lorry driver sat at the side of his vehicle eating his lunch. Having finished his lunch, the lorry driver turned on a water tap that most continental lorries seem to have on the chassis behind the cab, and rinsed his plate and cutlery.
All perfectly usual. But then he extracted his false teeth and rinsed them, very diplomatically- but instead of reinserting them, he put them in the palm of his hand and wandered off through the lorry park. The question is, was he looking for his mates so he could ventriloquise the teeth into telling an “I say, I say, I say” type joke? Unfortunately, we’ll never know!

Oct 18th: Siena

Train again, and a cold but bright day. Perhaps not ideal tripper weather, but we were enchanted. First photo is the central square, the Piazza del Campo, ringed by medieval buildings with 11 streets and passageways feeding into it. The large edifice with the tower is the Town Hall, nearly as splendid as Huntingdon’s Pathfinder house before it was demolished.
Photo 2 is just a typical example of one of the beautiful buildings you stumble across everywhere.

The cathedral was something else. We’ve never seen so many superb examples of different kinds of artistic work. Each of the following is a representation of a fraction of what was in the building:



12 to 14C Cathedral exterior, marble cladding
















Cathedral interior, black and white marble facings







16C Mural depicting Pope








13C Book of Illuminated writing








15- 16C Inlaid marble floor tableau: one of many covering most of the floor space.

Despite containing so many treasures and being such a tourist venue, the town had a real living soul, not at all like some Disney attraction they locked up at 8.00pm and everybody went home. Siena was our favourite place so far.

Oct 15th: Florence2

This visit was devoted to the Uffizi Galley. The tickets were bookable on line at a large premium, but we didn’t have to queue. The gallery itself was stunning: Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael etc.- and they were just the cloakroom attendants! Everything was larger than life, including the price of the coffee at €4.50 each (£4), but a total experience not to be missed.


Photos are unsurprisingly not allowed in the museum itself but from a window between the rooms you could take a good view of the Ponte Vecchio. The lower photo is taken from the coffee shop terrace, over the rooftops of central Florence- a shot worth all of €9?

Oct 10th-14th: Small Towns in Tuscany

Sometimes smaller places give you a better atmosphere of past times than the showcase cities.
San Gimignano is an example. The whole town is 14th C and is all the more authentic for being a little patched up here and there.



Each building is also so different.













These worn steps are from the town of San Miniato. You can picture the medieval townsfolk strolling up and down them of an evening & maybe the odd medieval drunk falling in a heap at the bottom.
Not much has changed!

Oct 11th: Pisa

Couldn’t go to Pisa and not include THE photo. We did resist the tourist’ favourite snapshot: the photo showing the hands of child/partner/friend stretched out supporting the toppling tower. Immense pains were being taken, “in a bit”…”out a bit”…to snap the hands in the precise position to save the precious monument.

This is the actual brass light fitting that Galileo saw swinging back and fore, and deduced that it appeared to take the same time to swing each arc, even as it was slowing down. He turned these observations into formal calculations for the time-swing of the pendulum, the principles of which were applied to create pendulum clocks, the most accurate timepieces in general use until modern times.


Wondrously lifelike, intricate carved figures support the pulpit in Pisa cathedral. The lady’s hand in covering her nakedness shows a very proper modesty. You aren’t allowed to speculate on any other interpretation.