Day 4 - Pompei

‍‍Today our bags were picked up from our room at 7am. I had already headed down to breakfast while John got dressed (we were to meet in the lobby at 7:50 am).  At 7.30, I returned to the room to discover John was getting readyg the flashlight on his phone.  Right after the luggage was picked up, the power to the room was turned off. So I ran downstairs to tell the Front Desk that the power was off and let Florence, our tour director know our situation.  The hotel sent someone up, but he could not resolve the problem. So John finished up in the dark and our group got on the bus.

Pompei was impressive. To ensure that we could go into some othe more impressive houses that limited group size, our group was divided into two smaller groups.  Our guide was good.  What makes Pompei so impressive is the size of the town.  We spent about 2 hours there.  We ate lunch at a nearby restaurant.  The food was delicious and plentiful (and included wine). I have started taking pictures of the wines I like in hopes I can get them ahen I get home.

We got to our hotel in Rome around 4:30, but our luggage didn't get to our room for another 30 minutes.  Once we got our luggage, we showered and dressed and met up with the group to walk to the restaurant.  The wine was good, but the service was very slow and many of the meals were not good. We each could choose 3 courses. I chose a pasta (fettuccine with truffles), a beef entree and canoli for dessert.  my dishes were all good.  John was disappointed in his.  He thought the meat was not a very good quality.  one guy at our table, Larry, ordered a pork dish that was all fat.  Then the recommended dessert which was supposed to be a chocolate tort with chocolate sauce and blueberries that almost everyone but me ordered came with no chocolate sauce or berries and was evidently very dry.

We barely finished our dinner when it was time to head for our little vans to take us on a Rome by Night tour.  14 of us were supposed to go, but a backed out, so only 12 of us went - 8 in one van and 4 in our van. We first went to the Trivoli Fountain. It was still pretty crowded at around 9.30 pm.  Then we drove around the Colossium.  There was no one there.  Our guide, Antonio was very good. He told us a lot of information about Rome as we drove us around.   We also crossed the Tiberius River and saw some of Rome on that side.  Our final stop was St. Peter's Basilica.  The four of us from our van were able to walk around with no one else around and take pictures.  That tour was well worth the extra cost.  When we got back to the hotel at after 11 pm it was time to relax before heading to bed.Read more