We listen avidly to the BBC and try to buy English language papers so we can hear what is going on in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. But although there is always a story on the radio, it’s mostly headlines – and it’s hard to get any English language papers in a town as small as Pompei. We can only hope that things are not as bad as we hear.

The ride down from Rome was pretty easy. We headed west from the campground on Aurelia to the Ring Road and down around that to the A1 to Naples. Nice road. Mostly straight, some hills at the beginning but it got flatter as you got closer to Naples. The heat also increased until we felt that it was in the 90’s. We have not yet used the air-conditioner in the “cab”. Fortunately this old vehicle’s cab has those triangular vent windows that most cars used to have. They helped a lot.

Route A1 passes some interesting places. For example, San Vittori, which was the scene of a John Hersey novel. There were a lot of battles in this area during World War II. There are signs that reminded us of WWII – Monte Cassino, Salerno and Anzio) – all of which were scenes of terrible fighting and loss of American boys. In another league of interest, we have also passed the factory where Sambuca is made.

We continued on past Naples heading south to Pompei. The location of the campground here in Pompei is almost perfectly suited to us. It is literally right across the street from the archeological site, the ancient city of Pompeii. (You spell the names of the ancient city and the modern town differently.) The train station is an honest ten-minute walk away, going slowly. You can catch a commuter train either to Naples in one direction or Sorrento in the opposite direction. Once in Sorrento, you can catch the bus that takes you down the coast to the extremely beautiful and unique towns of Positano and Amalfi. Both train and bus are inexpensive. In Sorrento, you can even catch a boat to the Isle of Capri. We won’t move for a while. This location gives us the opportunity to do a lot of tourist stuff. Unfortunately, the supermarket is a long way away. But the location, and the fact that this is a very nice campground, comfortable, clean and well-run, and with staff who are cheerful and give information freely made us decide to stay.

Our guide books all wrote about the dogs that are all over the Scavi (excavation, ruins). Our thought was that they might be nasty or run in packs. No. Even the dogs in Italy are easy going. They sleep on the street right in the middle of the hordes of tourists, and though dirty, are well-fed and mellow as can be. Indeed they are not only in the ruins but all over Pompei, including our campground. The thing is, they do not belong to anyone. They are free spirits, accorded by the town some of the same rights of citizenship that we Americans have. Certainly they have been granted freedom of assembly and of speech. I don’t know if they can vote but they do not seem to be interested in politics. In fact they seem to be much more interested in interpersonal relations. The dogs here in the campground came to greet us warmly on our first arrival and they wait for us to return after a hard day trodding the pavements around the sights and greet us warmly, tails awag as soon as we cross the entrance to the camp.

The first full day we were here, we decided that Pompeii was first on the list. We bought a book at a souvenir stall the day before so we could have an idea of what we would be looking at. Hah! We got to the ticket office at 9:30 a.m. and got home at 6 p.m. Even though we were there a whole day, we missed a lot. We were smart enough to take our own lunch, so we did probably sit on the high curb of one of the streets for 20 minutes, and we did occasionally sit on a stone to rest. But Pompeii is an entire city that had housed about 20,000 people. It is overwhelmingly large. Worse is that we ran into the usual Italian nonchalance. They prefer that you hire a guide (35 Euros per hour) or rent an audio guide. We can’t keep up with guides and like to wander on our own. We hate audio guides. They tend to tell you more than you want to know and certainly slow you down. But it was a mistake not to get one here. There were no signs, no explanations even in Italian. The only indication of what you were seeing was a practically invisible black bar and the number on it corresponded to the audio guides and not to the map of the site you were given upon entry.

Almost everything that was found in the houses had been removed. It was really hard to tell which of the existing walls belonged to any one house. Our favorite building was the bakery. The authorities had left the stone grinding “machines” which were fascinating. They consist of two parts, the top one with a waist sitting on the base stone, with both parts perched on a round table. You insert poles in holes in the top stone and use them as levers to turn it. Grain is placed in the hollow top of the upper stone and that slowly feeds down as the grinding proceeds. The flour falls out on the table. (Picture 1 shows the flour grinders found in the ruins of Pompeii.) We did see hundreds of buildings, but never were able to view the water system. We had entered at the main entrance, and discovered too late that if we had gone in a different entrance, we would have been able to see more of the famous houses!

Even so, it was an amazing experience. An entire city two thousand years old is spread out before you. The book did give us a lot of information but Pompeii requires a modern person to understand a highly organized, beautifully engineered city that had different sensibilities. It was difficult. There was nothing in most houses, except for an occasional copy of a statue, a fresco or a mosaic. Despite the bareness, it was overwhelming. We did know from our book that most of the things they found at the site are now at the National Archeological Museum in Naples. That would be on our agenda on Day Three.

We had already decided on Day Two. We would take the train to Sorrento, and then a bus that takes you to Positano and Amalfi on the Amalfi Coast. We know that the roads are narrow, clinging to the edge of hills and very convoluted—lots of hairpin turns, so tight that a car and a bus cannot negotiate them at the same time. That would not be a fun day in an RV! Were we glad that we opted for the bus! That road was as bad as the Connecticut couple we met at the Pompeii Ruins said it was. (They had noticed Ron’s UCONN hat and asked where we live!) All we can say is that the towns on the Amalfi Coast are built into the mountains and look just like we expected, except that they were more beautiful in person than they have been in movies and travelogues. (Picture 2 shows a beautiful mountain town on the Amalfi Coast.) Things with a lemon theme were everywhere. Huge lemons as large as grapefruits hung on the outside of shops. You could (and we did) buy lemoncello liqueur. We had a great day. We never did really visit the town of Sorrento. It just didn’t seem all that interesting to us.

Another incidence of Italian nonchalance. The bus made several unscheduled stops to take local people up the line. There were only two scheduled stops, both in Positano. There were no signs in the bus, and the bus driver didn’t call the two scheduled stops. So if you didn’t ask around, there was no way to know what stop you were at. More than one person on those buses did not get out at the stop they wanted because they had no way of telling when the bus arrived at their stop.

Day Four was to be Naples and the Museum. It turned out to be mostly the Museum because it was so interesting to see all the things that they found in the Vesuviana Scavi (ruins). These included not only originals of some of the paintings and mosaics but also household things like pots and pans, stoves, storage containers, and jewelry. (Picture 3 shows some of the pots and pans that were found in the ruins.) We managed to read some parts of the Italian signs on the exhibits. And there were several special exhibits that had Italian and English signs. Our cups runneth over.

A wonderful lunch – pizza of course and grilled vegetables – and we went back to the museum. When we were done, we decided to walk from the museum to Garibaldi Plaza – a very long way down the hill. That was the real Naples. Full of people – all talking loudly – with incredible traffic, lots of children, cars parked everywhere, dirty and busy. Just as advertised. We found an internet place and sent out letter 08.

We’ve been in a lot of Italian supermarkets, and the Supermarket Maven wants everyone to know that he’s not anywhere near as impressed with the Italian ones as with the French ones. Here they tend to be small except for the French-owned mall markets. On the other hand, there are great markets with individual stalls selling their own specialties.

Day Five began with a train trip to Ercolano (where the ruins of Herculaneum are). As we got off the train and before we could even ask where the ruins were, we were accosted by a group selling mini-bus rides to the top of Mt. Vesuvius. The price was reasonable, only 2 euros more per person than the cost of the regular bus. That bus runs only once or twice a day. These taxi drivers would go right then and there. We decided to go. They filled up an eight or nine person van, and then asked us to wait just a few minutes. Fifteen minutes later they had filled up another van that included us. What a ride! What a road! Ron and I decided our new driveway is wider than that road. And this is a two-lane road with occasional buses coming by. Slightly frightening, many hairpin curves and pretty much straight up. An adventure!

It turned out that the taxi could only go to the parking lot. Visitors must walk the remaining distance across four relatively short and one very, very long and steep switchbacks that rose 270 meters —about 800 feet-- from the parking lot pretty much straight up on steep switchback trails to the top of the crater. We managed to get up it – albeit slowly – and looked into the crater and down at Pompeii, Herculaneum, and all of Naples.(Picture 4 shows Vesuvius looming over the ruins of Pompeii.) Getting to the top was quite a climb. Even worse, the trek down the hill wasn’t too much better. The road was very steep and had a lot of rocks that you needed to avoid. But we got down in plenty of time to meet our taxi driver and go back to Ercolano. Then we found a hole-in-the-wall pizzeria with a big sign proclaiming “Wood Owen” (oven) and had great pizza for lunch. Afterwards it was time for the scavi.

The walk to the excavation site was quite long, and the walk from the ticket office to the actual site even longer. Then you went down a very long way through a covered passageway with extra wide metal mesh steps. That made the steep climb easier. Needless to say, we were already tired by the time we got into the actual ruins. This time we did take an audio set – and although it went on and on in an annoying fashion, we were able to hear what was known about the buildings. The town wasn’t discovered until much later than Pompeii, which was “found” in the 18th century. This town was never as big as Pompeii and only some of it has been excavated. (Picture 5 shows the ruins of Herculaneum. The buildings in the background are the modern city of Ercolano.) Because it was buried under mud rather than hot ash, there are more houses that have more than one story and original roofs and the excavators found many more artifacts. Although we were very tired, we saw most of the buildings, and found it very affecting. You got a much more immediate connection to the people of this town than to the more anonymous ruins of Pompeii. (Picture 6 shows one of the beautiful mosaics found in Herculaneum.)

While we were in the Pompei campground, we had a number of encounters with other campers. We’ve said before that it’s difficult to talk to people when you don’t speak their language. But it certainly can be done. An Italian couple had a door to their RV open, revealing many decals from all the places they have visited. Ron went over to take a closer look. When they saw him, they came out and started to talk to him in Italian. He indicated that he would like to take a picture of the door and they said OK and the wife came out to pose beside it. Later that evening they motioned for us to come over. They asked lots of questions beginning with our country of origin. They spoke in Italian and we spoke in English, but we managed to get them to understand who we were and how we got to Italy with our RV. Their reaction was “Bravo!” There was much further talk (all incomprehensible), much smiling and a lot of arm waving on both sides, and then another “Bravo” and Ciao. The next day they left to take a ferry from Naples to Palermo in Sicily where they live.

The next morning Ron was outside our RV, speaking rudimentary French. Then there was a man’s voice speaking good French. He belonged to one of the two French motorhomes parked next to us. The two couples travel together. And we mean travel. Like Russia, Norway, the Arctic Circle, Rumania, all around western Europe, Morocco, the Sahara and more. They kept asking questions, and finally Ron mentioned our book. He came in to tell me that they wanted a copy. We didn’t feel that we should charge them for it and we offered it to them as a gift. The Parisian man said that he wanted to give us something for it. He opened an outside compartment and gave us a bottle of real champagne. How’s that for a deal?

The only things we haven’t done yet from our Pompei base were a return to Naples to see the Art Museum or a trip to the Isle of Capri. We decided against both. Capri would be expensive and full of tourists and no matter how beautiful, it is still only a resort town. We’re going to begin the trip north and go along the Mediterranean Coast, traveling from Roma to Genova, passing and perhaps visiting Cinque Terre, and the Italian Riveria and then to France. Arrivaderci!

Adelle & Ron

Authors of "Take Your RV to Europe, The Low-Cost Route to Long-Term Touring"

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