Awful last day of tour

Today was supposed to be about sites mentioned by two writers - Pliny and Robert Harris. Pliny was admiral of the Roman fleet based at Misenum from where he described the stages of the eruption. Robert Harris started his book 'Pompeii ' in the Piscina Mirabilis, the cistern, big enough to provision to whole fleet with water, at the end of the aqueduct, also at Misenum and this was to be our first site. Misenum is in the Campo Flagrea to the northwest of Naples and the whole area is a caldera that sits on top of a giant magma chamber that is active and causes the ground to move up and down, through two or three metres. Yesterday there was an earthquake here, just 3.4 magnitude, but enough for them to close the archaeological sites especially those underground. So we drove around looking at anything Roman we could see and whilst we were in the open there was a violent thunderstorm with sheets of torrential rain for 20 mins. We were expecting rain today so were all wearing waterproofs and had brollies but they couldn't cope. We were all soaked so voted to give up and return to the hotel to dry out. Jamie is taking anyone who wants to go back into Pompeii site this afternoon but we prefer to wait for the sunshine tomorrow.Читать далее