Happy 2008!

We are in Calle Mayor -- right in the middle of the New Year's action -- waiting for 2008!

Wishing everyone a wonderful New Year and all the best for 2008!

Happy Holidays!

We want to wish all of our friends and family a wonderful Holiday Season. We are lucky to spend this Christmas and New Year's with family overseas and that is a big blessing!
We wish you all the very best this world has to offer.

Off to Galicia!

Love,

Ian and Valentina

Hanging in Marbella

We've been enjoying a relaxing week at Marriott's Marbella Beach Resort. The compound of villas is huge and we were lucky to get a villa so close the Mediterranean. As for the inside, we're feeling really spoiled again! The bed alone is nearly the size of the entire apartment we had in Florence. I may be exaggerating a tad but I swear a few nights ago I had to roll over like 4 times before I found Valentina tucked deep under the down comforter on the other side of the bed.

My Spanish classes have been GREAT. I was easily functional here in broken Spanish before the lessons but now I feel a lot more confident because I'm learning to actually use the language properly. And now, the moment you've all been waiting for. I will translate this blog for those who speak only Spanish: HOLA-ESTAMOS BIEN. ESTAMOS EN MARBELLA. LA CAMA ES TREMENDO. PERDIO VALENTINA EN LA CAMA. MIS CLASES SON BIEN.

Pretty good huh? (BIEN JUJ?)

Videos: Dubrovnik - Malaga - Sevilla

Dubrovnik

Malaga

Sevilla - (oh yeah, we've gone wide screen on my new camera-unfortunately the upload kills the quality).

Anecdotes of a deranged germaphobe

It's not your fault Valentina. I guess when both your parents are medical doctors, you can't help but be aware of the many microscopic dangers of an escalator's hand rail. It's probably perfectly normal to hold your breath just after a stranger sneezes until you're far clear of any unsightly DNA they've sprayed into your sanitary world. And finally, where this impacts me... I'm sure it's perfectly sane to keep tabs on MY 'sanitary status' to make sure I continue to win the endless war against the unseen attackers. The industrial sized hand sanitizer that you gave me for work was really useful. The people at work just figured there was a 'hand sanitizer by the gallon' sale at Costco.

Anyway, I bring this up in this blog because this trip has been a pretty big challenge for you and I think you're finally overcoming your fears. The other night you happily drank straight from your glass whereas even dying of thirst you used to wait patiently at PF Changs to finally ask the waiter for a straw. I knew this trip would make us change for the better in many many ways. :)

Sure, last night you berated me slightly after we ate dinner when I rubbed my eye... "You've been all over the city touching 'god-knows-what' and you touch your eye? Your EYE? You must just really want pink eye don't you!?"

Anyway... small steps....

This one is for my mom...

Maria Teresa.....
How much you pay? How much you pay? Vera Pelle, how much you pay?

Now that we are in Portugal, what's next?

Our flight from Lisbon to Sevilla was cancelled right before we got on the ship and with minimal internet access we were unable to make alternate arrangements. We were able to secure one additional night in the hotel after my parent’s departure, however, later found out that Dec. 8 is a religious holiday in Portugal and many of the hotels were fully booked for the remainder of the week. We stayed our third night in a basic but central hotel and decided to head South by bus today.

Lisbon has unique sights that add flair to a city. For example, the 25^th of April Bridge which looks much like the Golden Gate Bridge and is lit up at night over the Tejo river and the Torre de Belem which blends Moorish and Gothic architectural styles. We would have had more time for sightseeing but I felt a bit homesick on the day that my parents left and we decided to check out a movie instead. The cinema was inside the Colombo shopping mall – one of the largest in Europe. That was a pretty incredible mall – by far, the largest I had been to (and Ian thinks it is as big as the Mall of the Americas in Minnesota). This place was so pretty and had an amazing food selection with tons of restaurants – I know these things seem petty, but it’s quite unusual to find this type of shopping set up in Europe. We even found what is, by far, the largest store I have ever seen. The store (called Continente) was a mix between a Walmart, Target, and Publix – I thought Americans were known for building big, but this was really big!

We hadn’t really planned to visit Portugal for this length of time, but it’s been nice to get a taste for this country and language, which is in many ways similar to both Spanish and Italian. In a couple of days we’ll leave for Sevilla and settle into a nice little apartment for a week before moving on to Marbella.

Pics from the last few weeks...

Dubrovnik's main street

A panaromic view of Dubrovnik

The ship from the Santorini caldera

The beautiful little town of Oia, Santorini

Donkeys in Santorini are still very popular!

Mom and dad at the Roman Bath ruins, Carthage

Camel in Tunisia

A view of Sidi Bou Said in Tunisia

My mom finds the main street in Malaga!

By the Cadiz coastline

Our cruising days are over...

Now that we are in the South of Portugal (Faro), we’ll post some pictures of our port calls during the cruise. The ship was great and all decked out for Christmas. It would be difficult to retell stories from the last two weeks, but we’ll post some pictures from each of the stops: Dubrovnik, Santorini, Tunis, Malaga, Cadiz, and Lisbon.

By far the best part of the cruise was spending time with my parents. Unlike the past couple of months, the cruise days seem to have gone by faster than usual and the day of their departure back to the States came around too quickly.

A couple more pics...

The reflection of the water in St. Mark's Square

The Dolomites faintly appearing in the background

After Verona, there was....

Bolzano
This partly Austrian town is the gateway to the Italian Dolomites and it's also the home of Otzi the Iceman -- our main reason for visiting. Otzi was found about 15 years ago high in the mountain ridge by a couple on a hike. At first sight, it was thought that this was a body of a modern day hiker which had decomposed with time. However, it was soon discovered that Otzi was actually the body of a 5000 year old man! He was found complete with a copper axe, shoe, bag, stockings, and other articles of clothing. We actually saw Otzi's body in an ice room where he is exhibited to those who visit the Museum of Archeology. This was a really neat experience -- if you were unfamiliar with this story, I would highly recommend reading about it on the web.

Venice
On our last visit to Venice, Ian had seen a picture of Julia Roberts walking through a couple of feet of water on St. Mark's Square. We had heard that Venice floods in November and were hoping to experience this for ourselves. It turns out to be true! During the evening and early morning the tide rises and the water overflows some of the streets. I didn't really detect any foul smell, although I did see a rat (again) walking the empty streets at night. Wooden planks are placed to create a catwalk on which people can move around the city without having to get their pants went. St. Mark's Square gets covered in water and tourists (locals have water boots) crowd on wooden platforms as they move around. Having experienced this makes the fact that Venice is sinking actually real.

Verona Pics... tons of pics!

Ok, the actual words of Shakespeare (we were pretty close!).

Having fun at Castel Vecchio.

Yeah, a shot of home life at our studio apt in Verona.

Adige River-

Juliet's balcony and bronze statue.

She's cute as a button.

Money night shot of the Adige River and Verona

Ok, before Africa, there was Verona...

What better way to describe Verona than by the words of William Shakespeare himself... recited from memory no less!




Pics to follow... I have to try to get this blog back in order.

Where was Haitham when we needed him?

Two days ago we docked in Tunis, Tunisia in the Northern part of Africa. We visited the ancient city of Carthage and Sidi Bou Said on a guided tour and decided to venture into the Medina (historical center of Tunis) by ourselves -- what a mistake! Royal Caribbean had designated shuttles that could transport you to a main drop off point in the Medina and we felt they should be a safe way to reach our destination. There was a ´guide´in the bus who seemed quite knowledgeable at first. Then, he became a bit controlling telling us that he would get us back to the ship on time but we would first stop in some place for tea --what? All we wanted was to be dropped off in the Medina -- this was not part of the shuttle service.
The ´guide´ stopped the bus in a place where no other bus was parked and asked us all to get off. Several of us asked repeatedly where the pick up point was and he insisted we follow him and he would show us. Next thing we know we are standing outside of an Arabic Mosque where he proceeded to make pretty inappropriate religious comments about the different Muslim groups (he was Muslim himself). No American laughed. Somehow we end up in a carpet shop where they ´trapped´about 40 of us in a room for a carpet demonstration. They offered free drinks and despite the fact that you can sense the discomfort among this group of tourist (us included) a few people agreed to some mint tea and sodas (people do some strange things when they are tourists). It´s hard to capture the feeling of danger that was brewing in the room, but imagine being dropped off in the middle of a maze of eager (for a lack of a better word) merchants where you don´t speak the language under a time crunch because you have to get back on the ship and no one is telling you where the buses are.
My dad decided he wasn´t having any more of this crap and interrupted the ´carpet demonstration´ saying he hadn´t paid for this show and he just wanted to know where the bus stop was. The Tunisian giving the demonstration said we were ´free´to go but our ´guide´had disappeard so as to not tell us how to get back. Once we got up, the rest of the room followed us out through a maze of stairs and rooms. We found ourselves in a room surrounded by about 10 Tunisian men who would not tell us how to leave this ´store´and the exit was nowhere to be found. It was a crazy situation...40 tourists forming a circle around a room, 10 Tunisian men forming an outer circle around us and suddenly no one spoke English (how convenient!). When the ´guide´found himself confronted by several agitated people, he finally agreed to walk us to the bus stop.
He led us through a maze of shops, stopped at the end of a street, and pointed down a suspicious looking alley suggesting we take that to the end, turn left, and another left. We had two choices: 1. continue following this crazy dude who was forcing us into places where they would lock us up until we shopped or 2. take our chances in finding the bus. We took the second option and dipped it with about 5 other people. We finally found the bus back and left Tunis for good.
TIA:THIS IS AFRICA.

P.S. We later found out the shuttle buses were not supposed to have any ´guide´on board beyond the driver...great...this dude wasn´t even part of the bus company.

Pics from Milan... just a few

Shopping in Milan... not cheap.

Lunch with Valentina's cousins... Ecco lo qua!

After watching a balet at La Scala Theatre. The pic is a little fuzzy but oh well.

Cruising the Med

We are currently on Santorini in Greece. This time the weather is brighter and more clear than before so we're taking in this beautiful little island once again. The food on the ship as usual has been stellar. I'm going to post a few photos from places we've seen in between Athens and the Cruise. And hopefully when I get a better internet connection I can add some more videos: some informational, some ridiculous. :)

A little update

It's hard to compete with Ian's video blogging skills...but I wanted to let everyone know that our short stay in Milan was topped off with a ballet at La Scala theater where both of us were probably the worst dressed in the entire place (sold out performance). Oh, yes...I looked great from the ankles up...but the walking Merrell shoes just didn't finish off my outfit the way I thought they would. Ian was in jeans and his best sweater...appropriate for a moderately priced restaurant.
Now we are in Verona...the city of Romeo and Juliet. We are getting excited about next week when we'll see my parents who have agreed to join us on a 10 night mediterrenean Royal Caribbean cruise!!!! We'll post some more pics and, of course, the infamous videos when we get a better connection.

Ian Lee reporting: Mt. Vesuvius

A small taste of the insanity. Ok, it's out of order in terms of our trip but whatever!

A short follow up vid... we barely lived through that.

Video: The Parthenon

Athens Pics

Temple of Olympian Zeus... or it used to be. You can't tell from the picture but these columns are absolutely HUGE. This temple must've been something back in the day.

During subway excavations during the last 30 years, the Athenians have unearthed a lot of ancient city ruins. Here is a roman tomb opened up and left on display at the metro stop (complete with bones!).

The Parthenon from our hotel room.

Anywhere in the world, you can almost always get a Mickey D's icecream.

The Parthenon - maintenance work continues despite our trip.

At Syntagma Square in Athens hanging out.

Video: Amalfi Bus Ride

This was the week before we left to Athens. I'm sort of testing if I can actually upload these videos easily to the blog. We have a ton of these so I'll add more if it works out.

The honking sound you hear is the driver alerting cars around the curve that he's coming.

BIG News

Ok, we're back in Italy. This time in the north. It's been a pretty exciting couple of weeks for us and a lot of the excitement is coming from over seas!

The big news is... My brother and his wife are pregnant with their 4th child--wait... Did I say four? I meant 4th AND 5th... TWINS!! I've gone over a few possible names with them: Ian, Iana, Iania, Ianzino, Ianution, etc... you get the idea. Congrats Steve and Mary. Don't worry, I'm sure five kids is MUCH easier than it seems like it's going to be.... maybe. :)

Athen's Bad Reputation

After staying in Athens for a few days, I find the majority of the guide books to be wrong. Their advice was this: see the acropolis, see the museum of archeology, get out. Their out-dated advice called the city poluted and nasty.


As I understand it, the 2004 olympics was a turning point for the city. Many projects got underway and cleaned up many of the areas that were previously ugly. One of the guidebooks said, "forget about the rest of Athens and just pretend the Acropolis and Plaka district are all that there is in the city". I have two points here: 1) If all my city has was the Acropolis and the Plaka district I think it would be pretty fantastic. 2) This city has much more than just that. It's pretty spread out but just speaking of the city center, there are some gorgeous/fantastic areas including the national gardens, constitution square, and an ultra-modern business district that can rival a lot of big cities in the US for style and architecture. Not to mention a plethora of cool museums.


Being here longer than the guide-book recomended, two days I have to say that I've enjoyed this city at least as much as Rome. I don't know if I'm biased because I'm sitting on my balcony while typing this and turning my head to the right I can see the Parthenon perched on the Acropolis with its huge columns lit from below by spot lights. Uh, awesome...


Don't get me wrong though, there are areas here in Athens that I wouldn't pass through with a swat team but isn't that true of every big city? Generally, when I'm in Miami and driving to the beautiful Coconut Grove area I consider a red-light at the intersection of Douglas and Grand to be more of a suggestion than a hard rule. :)

Back in Athens...

Crete was a fantastic place even though we were unable to visit some of its most magical places due to the fact that many sights close at the end of tourist season. Nevertheless, it really captured us – the sounds, people, food, and culture were truly wonderful. We left Hania by ferry to the island of Santorini (Thira) where we spent two nights. Now we are currently back in Athens.

Athens is a vibrant city. There are tons of people walking the streets, huge shopping areas, outside restaurants, street performers, and street sellers. We still haven’t done much sightseeing here but have an incredible view of the Acropolis from our hotel’s balcony. We are not sure how much longer we’ll be here – several nights at least until we find out our next destination. We are certainly moving a little more often than we had planned to but will soon settle in our next homebase in Spain.

A sense of timelessness...

For some time I wondered if those theories you get by email about the earth spinning faster making the days seem shorter could possibly be true. My dad and I were convinced that time was passing too quickly; that the years were being spent in what seemed to be no longer than a day. Now, I’m back to doubting all of those theories which leaves me with an even bigger sense of discomfort…if it’s not the earth spinning faster, what do we blame it on?

In one of my early posts I mentioned still battling the need to slow down; to rid myself of that sense of urgency that seems to plague so many of us day after day. As if by coincidence my watch battery died about a month into our trip. It wasn’t sudden – as I’m sure is the case when other watch batteries die. I had about three days of warning when I couldn’t figure out why I was constantly wrong on what time of day it was. Looking back now I realize that even those three days were part of my training! I spent about 3 weeks without a working watch and didn’t care much for what time of day it was (unless, of course, we had a train or bus to catch). Even when I did get my watch fixed, it wasn’t until the owner of a little Hania restaurant mentioned to us that the hour had been set back that we were actually running on accurate time. It has been a freeing sensation – to know that one really does own each single second of the day.

Greece Pics

Ian napping on the ferry between Athens and Crete.

The Hania 'Old Harbor' Taken from the lighthouse.

A little street in Hania near the water.

Lighthouse on the harbor in Hania.

A minaret in the Turkish quarter.

What?? Tell me seriously, did I just snap this shot? Yeah I did.

Arrival in Greece

Although sooner than expected, we decided it was time to head to Greece. While visiting Herculaneum, we had met a British couple (Chris and Cliff Jones) who told us about their recent visit to Crete. That was enough to make it our next destination.

After flying into Athens we took a 7 hour ferry from Piraeus on a really nice Greek ferry boat and reached Hania at 11 PM. Our taxi driver took us to the small pedestrian street where we had reserved a studio. These moments are always interesting – we are never entirely sure about where we’ve chosen to stay, the kind of trek we’ll have to take to reach it, how far it really is from sights, etc. Lucky for us (again…and knock on wood) we found another wonderful place to stay. The Greek girl greeted us and provided two rooms to choose from. While both were fine, we asked to see more rooms (we found it’s always a good idea in these places to do that). The next room was it! Our place in Hania couldn’t be any more perfect…it’s beautifully decorated with a balcony overlooking a gorgeous little pedestrian street.

Although we were tired and it was late, we decided to take a short walk…that’s when we came across the ‘Old Venetian Harbor’. It was then that my jaw dropped in amazement. This place was enchanting – absolutely beautiful and almost too picturesque to be real. The Venetian buildings lining the harbor look like a beautiful façade instead of an incredible slice of Greco-Venetian life from a few hundred years ago. Since seeing the harbor for the first time we've learned that the Venetians acquired Crete (along with other parts of Greece) and held it for around 400 years until the Ottoman Empire took it over late in the 1600’s. As is the same in much of Greece, there is a strong Turkish influence on the culture here as a result of hundreds of year’s Ottoman control after the Venetians. It was pretty interesting to see the minarets from old mosques and also some Muslims at prayer inside their homes as we walked through the Turkish quarter.

Anyway, this post on Greece is definitely “to be continued…” because I haven’t even touched on the scrumptious Greek food and copious amounts of “Raki” that the restaurants give you free after your meal.... yum!

Last day in Sorrento

On our last day in Sorrento, we decided to travel to Naples. We had heard that the city was a mad house, but were curious to see it for ourselves. The truth is that Naples was a pretty wild place and didn’t leave the best of impressions on us (although I should mention we were only in the city for a few hours and may not be qualified to judge).

Ian describes it as a scene from a futuristic movie where a nuclear explosion had thrust a city into chaos. The city is having a huge garbage problem – the landfills are full and the garbage company stopped collecting the trash. Try to imagine the large piles of trash on the streets spilling over sidewalks and filling the air with a less than desirable smell. Add to that a few choice people picking through the garbage and behind the piles a very long row of illegal street sellers waiting like hungry vultures to make a sale (and we were the dead meat!). Ok, then add to that the bustle and chaos of cars, vespa’s, buses, and taxis all whizzing around each other seemingly ignoring traffic signs and each other. Our taxi purposely went down the “wrong way” of a street in order to avoid having to make a more circuitous trip.

Despite all this, however, our visit was worthwhile in that we had a chance to walk through the National Archeological Museum where many of the original frescoes and findings from Pompeii are housed. We also entered the ‘Secret Room’, which is the Museum’s collection of phallic art found in ancient ruins…it turns out that pornography has been a part of life from the beginning of time!

Capri

These three destinations (Capri, Positano, Amalfi) were part of our day trips from our homebase in Sorrento. I’ve been meaning to blog about our experiences at each, but the last days in Italy were busy and with little internet access.

Capri was as beautiful as we had heard it would be. A town perched hundreds of feet above the sea where every house and street is immaculately kept. There were flowers decorating walls and balconies, views of the ocean that were breath taking, and expensive boutiques for window shopping. Ian and I decided we would take the bus to AnaCapri (Capri’s sister town) in order to visit the Blue Grotto. The ride up the mountains was thrilling – a small bus packed with people taking sharp turns on roads with railings no more than 2 feet high. I couldn’t stand to watch the cliffs below as the weight of the bus would shift from side to side! The Blue Grotto was a nice experience – To enter the grotto you must ride a tiny boat in which you lay completely flat. There is a chain that the gondolier pulls on to get our little boat through a small opening in the rocks. Inside the grotto, the water seems an electric blue color – a natural wonder created by the reflection of the sunlight on the sand and water. In Capri we also saw the Arco Naturale and completed a 1.5 hour hike around the island before taking our ferry back to Sorrento.

Amalfi Pics

Amalfi (the day after Positano)

The next day we both dreaded the idea of riding the bus again – this time for an additional 45 minutes beyond the Positano stop. We forced ourselves out of bed (I’m embarrassed to say that it was probably around 11 a.m.) and made our way to the bus stop. Luckily the sky was clear and sunny, although the cold did not cease. The Amalfi Coast was breath taking – we were so happy that we went. The Amalfi Coast is famous for its paper and we had a chance to visit an ancient paper mill where we learned how the paper was made using actual cotton cloth. We also visited the town’s Cathedral where the remains of St. Andrew, the town’s patron, are kept. In 1544, the Saraceen fleet commanded by the ‘Red Beard’ approached the Amalfi Coast. The town invoked the protection of St. Andrew and it is said that an unforeseen storm wrecked the pirate ships. A piece of one of the pirate ships is on display in the town’s Cathedral. After nightfall, we decided to be the first at the bus stop in order to avoid a standing ride back into town. As it turns out, we were the only 2 on the bus most of the way and had a chance to chat in Italian with the driver…we were pretty proud of our Italian skills!

Positano

Positano was a bit of a disappointment – and that is just me being completely spoiled! The ferries from Sorrento stopped running in mid-October, so we were forced to take the bus (Ian was dreading the idea…we had heard the drive to the Amalfi coast was one of the most scenic and terrifying ever!). The bus ride took approximately 45 minutes – most of which was on winding roads with the mountain one side and amazing views of the ocean on the other. On that day, the sky was grey and the air was cold…not the right combination for a small beach town. After a couple of hours of wandering around a slightly deserted town (I’m sure it is amazing in the summer months…as shown in The Talented Mr. Ripley), we decided to head back home. The ride back was exponentially worse than the ride there. The bus was completely packed and we made the 45 minute journey standing in the isle of the bus – by the time we reached Sorrento we were both motion sick. It’s a good thing we didn’t celebrate Ian’s birthday this way!

An Italian birthday…

We celebrated Ian’s birthday last weekend.We had intended to spend the day in Positano, but in true Ian & Valen fashion we overslept and missed the ferry (which turned out being alright since we had been looking at the outdated ferry schedule anyway!). We decided instead to spend the day in Sorrento walking around the many tiny streets with shops and enjoying the amazing views of the ocean. The day was really cold and windy although still sunny and as we made our way around town we realized how familiar it all felt. Even though we are thousands of miles away from ‘home’, this place still feels right.

Our apartment in Sorrento has been great– We look forward to our quick exchanges with Rosa, our walk down into town, and even our walk back uphill. All this walking has made it easy to justify all the good food we’ve had! Our stay here, though, is coming to an end in just a few more days and as we made plans to leave Sorrento for Greece, I began to feel a bit sad about leaving Italy behind. It makes you realize how easily one can adapt to new circumstances. Our adventures in Greece, however, are sure to be filled with new and exciting lessons.

Mt. Vesuvius Pics

We're a long way up.

Vesuvius smoking and grumbling a bit.

At the top of the crater.

The chair in question.

A climb to Mt. Vesuvius...

We decided to climb to the crater of Mt. Vesuvius by taking a shuttle from Herculaneumo to the base of the volcano. Our shuttle had room for 9 passengers, including the driver. After we had all piled in another couple arrived and paid for tickets. I figured they would have to wait for the next shuttle until I saw the Italian come out of the sales booth with a small cracked wooden chair which he placed in an open space in the van. The girl was squeezed in between the three of us in the back seat; her husband sat in the unstable wooden chair. The drive to the base of Mt. Vesuvius took about 35 minutes in a winding road with numerous sharp turns. I watched the wooden chair slide slightly with every turn - the poor guy on it holding tightly to the sides of the van.
We arrived at the entrance and began the trek up the mountain to reach the 4000 ft summit. It took us approximately 30 minutes of walking uphill to reach the crater. What a view! We walked as far as we could around the crater trying to find the best angle until we heard a slight rumble and saw steam come up from the rocks inside the crater! It was truly amazing. From the top you could see all the nearby towns and we are pretty sure we spotted the island of Capri. In the distance you could also see Naples.
It was time to meet our driver again and to claim your seat inside the van (I didn’t want to ride the chair!). As the original group took their spot in the van, we noticed the driver was giving tickets to an additional couple. Now, clearly...they would certainly have to wait for another shuttle. Wrong again! The driver opened the back door of the passenger van pointing to the space in the back meant for carrying baggage. We couldn’t see what happened next but assumed the couple refused the trunk space. We even joked about it in the shuttle as we made our way back into town…only to find the couple emerge from the cramped space when we reached the parking lot of the Herculaneum train station! The silly things you do when you are a tourist!

Pompeii Pics...

Vesuvius and a small portion of Pompeii

A little inspiration at the brothel never hurt anyone (not immediately that is).

A temple with Vesuvius in the background.

Plaster cast...

Pompeii

Wow, I’ve never been so excited that a volcano erupted! Pompeii was truly a gem. It differs from Rome in that the ruins are MUCH better preserved and offer a wide slice of ancient Roman life. In Pompeii, over what seemed like a huge amount of space there were a few bakeries, pubs, tons of homes, small theatres, a huge ampitheatre (though much smaller than the coliseum in Rome), public baths, temples, food markets, and brothels.
The reason for the great preservation apparently is that the ash from the volcano covered the city a few meters deep, the city remained abandoned, and excavations didn’t begin until the 1700’s. While Rome continued to build the city around and on top of itself, Pompeii stayed untouched for close to 2000 years.
The ancient Roman homes in Pompeii were beautifully decorated with many of them having fully frescoed walls and beautifully tiled floors. The brothels were a highlight. They were complete with suggested positions painting on the walls and ancient graffiti written in Latin by the patrons and the prostitutes. I’m pretty sure that one I saw translated to: “Marc Anthony and Cleopatra 4EVA”.
Lastly, the plaster casts of human remains were incredible. Apparently over 2,000 years a body will decompose (I know, weird). But amazingly, if it was buried in the ash then an empty space or cavity will be left after it decomposes. So when the archeologists first came across a cavity of space in their digging, they noticed human bones at the bottom of the cavity. The bones were removed and the plaster was poured into the space. After it hardened, they remove the ash from outside of it and voila! The detail is quite shocking. You can see the expressions on their faces, their teeth, the folds of their clothing, footwear they were possibly wearing.Pompeii was a truly amazing site. There were a few things that I didn’t understand about some of the ruins, but when I get back I’ll have to ask Haitham. No, he’s not an archeologist, but he’s quite a knowledgeable dude.

More pics from Rome then Sorrento

A much needed haircut for Ian


From the top of Castel Sant'Angelo

When in Rome... Water fresh from an aqueduct

Relaxing at the villa in Sorrento

The villa

Sorrento's main square