Pompeii

Pompeii is a city within a city within a city. Dogs roam the streets, sleeping on the roads and in doorstoops, looking sadly up at tourists.

Our hostel reminded me of Shakespearean romance - all white linens, french double doors and balconies. New Pompeii is interesting - lots of little shops and expensive restaurants and the usual tourist-city stuff. The people were very friendly there.

The ruins are terrible - you can't get to the good stuff without pulling an Indiana Jones - leaping over barriers or gargantuan stone walls. You can catch a glimpse of them through holes that have been worn into these walls, and the ruins that you can't get to are probably about ten times more interesting. That is the problem with renovating history.

We sat in a cafe and enjoyed the scenery - thousands of lemon trees lining the streets and tons of history everywhere.

Pompeii is a very cool place and the ruins are interesting but I wish more of them were available - then again we got lost several times trying to find the brothel (we were, in the end, successful) so maybe opening more of it would be a bad plan.