Our last day in Dubai was enjoyed with a self guided tour of the city, a bit of geocaching and some shopping. I was keen to buy a momento from the Islamic state and also a scarf in anticipation of some cooler air trying to creep down my nape! In the bazaar the guys were seriously in your face trying to sell their wares....the fact that you didn't want new shoes or a 1:50 scale camel didn't matter a jot. Their job was to sell you one! I managed to find a scarf that I think will do the trick. Didn't get the camel though.
Three days wasn't enough in this city, I would have liked to stay longer after initially wondering why we were stopping over at all. It is a really good place to visit.
Our next stop was Rome but this was just a stop over for an hour as we had booked an apartment in Naples for five nights. We arrived in Naples at 11.30pm after a few aviation type hold ups and one thing and another so were well pleased that "Antonio" was standing at the door of our house to be, in the middle of the night - we paid him an extra 20 Euro for that, not because we wanted to but because he told us we had too....grrrrrrrr.... Naples is an hour south of Rome, has a population of one million and is reputed to be the birth place of pizza. We tried a couple and I would have to say that Dominos do a pretty good imitation.
After catching up on some sleep and getting some domestics sorted we did some wandering in the home of the mafioso. We mosied through the narrow streets, dodging people, motor bikes and cars just looking to get a feel for the place, and it's alright. Even though we had been warned to watch out for pick pockets, deviants and beggars, the place is pretty good. Certainly different than Dubai our last stop, where any public show of affection is severely frowned upon. Here, in the romantic country of Italy, we regularly see couples expressing love for one another. Men kissing each other on each cheek, men and woman regularly kissing and at times some serious deep throat antics that would have the Arabs speed reading the Koran. It must be all good in Naples though as they have near on 450 worship houses which is the highest ratio of churches per person in the World.
This is the view from our apartment balcony onto what is one of the main arterial routes! No wonder small cars are popular. Most of the city streets are large stone cobbles.
There are a number of things to have a look at in this sea side Mediterranean city. The town lives less than 20 kms from Mt Vesuvius an active volcano. Back in 79AD it erupted and smothered the town of Pompeii in ash. The remnants of this town were discovered in 1748 and have been slowly excavated by archaeologists since then. Over a third still remains to be dug up and catalogued but what we saw was amazing. These guys had a well organised town 500 years before our dearly beloved JC was born! We spent a few hours with a guide book in one hand and a map in the other. Everything we saw was hard to believe, this stuff is 2,500 years old. It is all well preserved as the layer of ash has protected everything from decay. We found houses, a bakery, public baths, some praying places, a medical premises, a market place, a brothel and an amphitheater. The whole thing was fantastic and worth the trip to Italy just to see it. Evidently there is another smaller village similar to Pompeii that was even better preserved in mud, but we never got to Herculaneum.
We took the train to Pompeii, then Sorrento. This is about 25kms south of Naples and is a regular holiday spot for local Europeans. From Sorrento there are regular buses heading southeast along the Amalfi Coast. The bus from Sorrento to Positano was a 45 seater on a road that was built for motorbikes! The road clings to the side of cliffs and people have built houses also clinging to the side of the cliffs. I can't say that I'm envious, a couple too many, a stagger and a trip and you fall 50metres into the backyard of the neighbour below you.
Tomorrow it is time to move on. A number of destinations are in the offing. Everywhere is so close compared to NZs nearest neighbour. We have looked at numerous options but have purchased tickets to Edinburgh, Scotland. Not far away live relatives in Dundee, Helen and Moira. We are flying there to attend to some shoulder problems that I have....basically an aching and sometimes downright painful shoulder that high rates of pain killers or antiinflamatories aren't getting on top of. A disappointment but travelling on isn't really an option. Hopefully we can understand an English speaking medic and we can get something sorted out and continue our travels. We will fly British Airways, Naples to London, and then on to Edinburgh. It would be be very coincidental if the BA captain was one Grant Spence, my step-brother. We will find out at 1pm tomorrow, Saturday.
Posted with Blogsy