What a day!

Today was all about Pompeii. We started off at 9.00 with an hour's lecture from our archaeologist Jamie Sewell who has excavated here and is very good. We entered the site at 10.00 and got back to the hotel at 5.30 with just 45 min break to eat our packed lunch. It was exhausting but worth every minute. Jamie finished his tour about 3.30 but we couldn't resist popping into a few more houses on our walk back. The mosaics in the Naples museum are better than those left in situ but the frescoes still here are much better as they are just as fine and you can see them in context. And there are so many of them - far more than we were able to see 26 years ago when we were last here. Can't describe them all but for our benefit will try to list the places we saw:

Amphitheatre
House of Julia Felix
House of Menander
Triangular forum
Great theatre
Insula of chaste lovers (still being excavated)
Forum
Forum baths
Villa of the Mysteries (home to frescoes on our bathroom wall)
House of the vetti
House of the faun
House of Marco Lucrezio Frontone
House of Sirico
Stabian baths
Thermopolium of Vertutius Placidus
House of the marine Venus.

We took over 70 photos and plan to go back to see more on Monday after the tour finishes.Read more