The drive was not really very pretty – a barren landscape with some really bad bad drivers and roads that felt like they were more pothole than road. Slightly anxious making when you see the car alongside us chatting up women in the next car out of the window at 100km an hour.
We arrived in Paestum to find probably our nicest hotel yet. We were expected , were given a welcome drink and told we were to have the breakfast we hadn’t paid for! We wandered down to the beach to find that there was live music and so sat and chilled.
The next morning after a run along the promenade, we made very good use of the free breakfast (quite posh too) and then we hopped on the free bikes and rode to see the Greek ruins of Paestum. They were billed as the best Greek ruins in the world and they didn’t disappoint. We saw them on a picture perfect day, with only a few Americans around us. There were 3 big temples across a large site with great explanations on the information boards – the kids know I like a good sign! We also went into the museum which I really liked and Callum put up with.
After that, we went down to the beach for probably our last beach afternoon of the trip. It looked like the resort’s too as they were packing up the hotel’s private beach. We would have stayed another day here but the weather had other ideas and so the next morning we set off for Pompeii after another huge breakfast.
As we headed towards Salerno and Naples, we should have known that things were taking a turn for the worse. We were quite surprised to see that the road included a lot of “ ladies of the night” every few km at 11.00am! Sights of a different sort! We drove along part of the Amalfi Coast and stopped in Amalfi itself which was pretty but shrouded in rain and mist.
We had a booked an Airbnb near Pompeii which we knew was not the most touristy area but the reviews had been ok. We had not expected it to look like Beirut! As we got closer, we locked the doors and counted down the km hoping for a miraculous change in the area. On arrival , we feared leaving the car even for the 2 minutes it took us to open the door, use the facilities and leave again. We cancelled the booking, drove to Sorrento and booked somewhere else all in the space of an hour! To be fair, the host did refund most of our money which was very decent of her. The whole thing was a bit unsettling and then I did find it quite hard to relax and feel safe again despite our new place being fine.
The next day, we had planned to go to Herculaneum however they now shut every Wednesday so the whole point of going to the area was lost anyway. Instead, we headed for Naples which was supposed to have some pretty areas. Unfortunately, just as our last visit to the area several years ago with the kids, we had thunderstorms and torrential rain. How someone could say the Naples is a good place to visit , we have no idea. Based on what we saw (the main sites), it was very dirty, covered in graffiti and totally underwhelming. There are very few pictures because I did not feel safe to have my phone in my hand! We stayed for pizza on the street where it was supposedly invented and then hot-footed it out of Dodge on the slowest train ever. We were happy to leave the area behind and head off to Rome where we would do some proper roaming.
Rossies Go Roaming 