The Long Way Home: All Roads Lead to Rome

....That is if you can survive the crazy Italian drivers!! Honestly, the worst we have come across so far!

When one lane becomes three...

Heading south from Tuscany, our first stop was Cassino to see the famous abbey on Montecassino, and where both of our grandfathers fought in WWII.

Montecassino abbey is one of the most stunning that I have had the pleasure of going inside. It is set atop a big hill that overlooks the Liri valley. During WWII it was occupied by the Nazis and the allies fought a series of battles to eventually capture what was considered a valuable strategic vantage point, between January - May 1944. The battle(s) for Montecassino cost 75,000 soldiers their lives - 55,000 allies & 20,000 Germans. It also left the abbey and surrounding town in absolute ruins, although interestingly it was fourth time in its history that the abbey had been destroyed and rebuilt. Thankfully, the artwork from inside the abbey was moved to safety before the battle and was eventually returned to the site where it remains today. They also remodelled the abbey to near original design using old drawings and paintings as well as utilising marble fragments in beautiful mosaics.

The view over Cassino

The Montecassino Abbey

Pictures of the destruction during WWII

The Commonwealth War Cemetery at Cassino. There were many unidentified graves here.

After Cassino we headed for the famed Amalfi coast on the south west coast of Italy, basing ourselves in Sorrento for three nights and then moving on to the town of Amalfi for a further three nights. Sorrento is famous for its lemons (nearly the size of your face!) and boy did we enjoy some of the end products (namely, zesty lemon cream gelato and of course Limoncello). We stayed in a really nice hilltop Villa overlooking the sea - the views were absolutely stunning and the steep climb up the hill from town helped us to justify our daily gelato habit!

From our base in Sorrento we decided to take the train to the ancient ruins of the towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii. Both are now archeological sites where the preserved remains of the towns have been uncovered after they were completely buried by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79AD. We went to Herculaneum first, which was the smaller of the two towns (with less area excavated due to the sheer volume of material that it is buried beneath), but also the most haunting. The town was based on the ancient seashore about 20 minutes from modern day Naples, and was buried beneath 25m of pyroclastic material (hot ash). Due to the nature of the pryoclastic flows that buried the town, many buildings, including organic material such as wooden door frames, were excellently preserved, and have been excavated by archaeologists to give us a glimpse of what life was like in Roman times in a well-to-do city. The most haunting part of the site was the old town docks, where only a few years ago archaeologists discovered over 300 human skeletons, mainly of women and children, who tried to shelter from the eruption. Unfortunately the docks afforded no protection and they were all killed instantly by a cloud of hot ash and gas reaching 500 degrees Celsius. Despite an instant death, the positions of the skeletons (which remain in situ) clearly show the terror and anguish experienced in the moments prior. A harrowing sight.

Top left: An old bar with inset pots for selling food; Top right: view over the excavated part of Herculaneum, far below the modern town of Ercolano (seen in the background). Left centre: an old fresco once outside a shop indicating the price of wine!

The ancient sea shore and excavated city - you can clearly see just how deeply it had been buried!

The frame of an old bed survived

Pompeii was a much larger city than Herculaneum and so too was the archeological site. It was like stepping back in time, and was really interesting to see how the Romans lived. We saw the well preserved remains of bathhouses, Nobel houses and even a brothel! The roads were also well preserved, complete with drainage systems and you could even see grooves in the stones from horse and cart traffic! Another famous feature of Pompeill are the several plaster casts that were made in the early 1900s where plaster was poured into cavities left behind where people had been vaporised by the eruption, leaving behind the exact impression of their position at the moment of their death. Creepy stuff. The amphitheater was also interesting to see, although not as large as the Colosseum, it's nearly 500 years older and has remained almost perfectly intact!

Clockwise from top: Old Roman Forum with recent sculpture; body cast; amphitheater; graphic frescoes (read, menu) in the Roman brothel!

Grooves from cart traffic!

The following day we decided to do something a little bit different and try our hand at making pasta at a cooking class in Sorrento! Our Villa kindly organised this for us in town, and somehow it ended up just being the two of us! We started off by enjoying some prosseco & then got to work making pasta, which we then turned into delicious Basil, Ricotta, Mozarella and Parmesan Ravioli, later cooked and served with Tomato and garlic sauce. Now that we've made pasta and realised that it is really pretty simple, we will definitely try it again! We then made a tiramisu, a layered dessert with a mascarpone & rum cream poured over lady finger sponge biscuits soaked in espresso..... It was really heavy, but really good. To top it off, Ricardo, our friendly chef and cooking mentor, produced what must be one of the largest bottles of Limoncello in existence! It was homemade with Sorrento lemons of course, and it was fair to say that it packed a punch! We sat down and enjoyed our creation in the restaurant, enjoying ourselves too much to remember to take a picture of the finished product! It was good, I can assure you (and not just because we made it! Haha).

The next day we left Sorrento for the town of Amalfi. The reputation of the roads and the drivers in Amalfi had us a little nervous about experiencing it first hand. Well, it turns out that it has that reputation for a reason! The cliff side roads are very narrow and busy, and every single car seems to have scrapes and dents. God only knows how the bus drivers manage it, perhaps it is because their passengers are all praying that they make it out alive!

Our accommodation was located in the hills above the town of Amalfi, and thankfully we had a reserved parking spot, or so we thought. We drove down the one lane road only to find that there was no way we could physically fit our van into the park that had been reserved for us, and more over, that there wasn't anywhere to turn around! Some rather careful reversing back down the road for several hundred meters between concrete walls and parked cars ensued. We were glad to find a park, folded the wing mirrors in and left the van there hoping that getting back out wouldn't be too troublesome in a few days time!

Narrow roads up to our accommodation at Pogerola!

View from our apartment

Pictures from around Amalfi, including the beautiful Duomo (and someone having to wear a paper cape inside the Basillica!)

We just missed the annual rowing regatta, but did get to see the big parade where they we're introducing the teams from across Italy.

While in Amalfi we did the spectacular Path of the Gods walk from Agerola to Positano, although it seems we ended up missing the end of the track and taking an alternative route into Positano via 1700 steps down to the road! Including the 900 steps down to Amalfi from our accommodation that morning, we were grateful to reach the beach for a well earned swim. Our exhaustion must have also clouded our judgement as we also paid a horrendous amount for a sun lounger for the afternoon. Daylight robbery I tell you! Sometimes I'm amazed at what tourists are suckered into paying for (and we aren't immune!).

Path of the Gods

Positano

On the 13th June after 60 days on the road, 7,563km driven, €993 in gas, and 42 nights sleeping in the back, we said goodbye to our van (called Crush Proof). It wasn't a particularly ceremonious send off, but Shaun did get to ride on top of our luggage on the bed in the back while the guy from the depot dropped us at the train station!

Bye van!

The 15 minute walk from Roma Termini station to our accommodation in Rome quickly made us realise that we had far too much gear with us, and we must have looked rather sweaty and tired when we arrived at our hotel. The hotel was run by nuns and appeared to double as some kind of convent (looking like a what I imagine a hostel from the 1970's to look like). I think it needed Whoopy Goldberg to liven the place up a bit!

We were finally in Rome. As our friend Mitch described in his recent blog post, the place is like an open air museum! Although it is also incredible to think that over 2000 years of history of the city is all buried beneath our feet!

Aside from sorting through our things to lighten our packs, sending some home and leaving some for charity, we explored the Vatican Museums, St Peters Basillica, did some shopping, and did a walking tour with an archaeologist visiting the Colosseum, Roman forum, and Pantheon. I really enjoyed the walking tour, seeing all the layers of ruins and learning a bit about ancient Roman life and he history of Rome, as well as soaking up some of the great city atmosphere. The Vatican didn't impress me quite as much as I had thought it might, but was indeed beautiful and an important sight to see nonetheless. Overall, Rome seems like a really cool city, so long as you can avoid the tourist traps!