Happy New Year!

We rang in the new year in Palermo and had a great time. They had a fun Italian rock band in the main city square, along with lots of vendors selling bottles of champagne and firecrackers going off everwhere all the time. New Year's Eve was one time we were glad to be wearing our frighteningly un-stylish raincoats because at midnight everyone in the square popped their champangne corks and we all got drenched. Most of the locals had umbrellas.

The next night we took an overnight ferry from Palermo to Napoli. They actually made us get off the boat at 6:30am so by 6:45 the two of us were wandering around the Napoli dockyard in the dark (seems everyone else arranged to be picked up). We made our way to the Circumvesuvio train station, which will be our primary means of transportation for the next week because it links Napoli, Sorrento, and Pompei and is very inexpensive. By 9am we had dropped off our packs at our B&B and were sitting in a cafe in downtown Sorrento drinking glorious cappuccinos (how we survived without daily cappuccino for the past 25 years is a true mystery). Sorrento is an absolutely wonderful, beautiful place. Highly recommended. We are staying at a cooking school called Mami Camilla that also provides some accomodations. It's lovely. We would have liked to take a day of cooking classes but they're a bit pricey so we'll have to make due with eating the meals prepared by the cooking classes - also a bit pricey but reputed to be worth it.

Yesterday we spent the day at Pompei which is so fascinating. The most remarkable thing about the city, compared to other archaeological sites we've seen, is how enormous it is. We spent four hours walking around there and probably saw less than half, and that is only of the 12 acres currently open to the public! There are over 30 acres not open for touring because they're still being excavated. It's amazing to see how well people really lived 2000 years ago - big multi-story houses, apartments for rent, shops and restaurants of all kinds, sewage systems and fresh drinking water, wide sidewalks, spaces for recreation and performance. Incredible!

Today we're headed back to Napoli for the day to visit the archaeological museum where they have all of the artwork and objects excavated from Pompei and hopefully to eat some delicious pizza since that's where it was invented!

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