Italy - Day 14 (Amalif and Pompeii)

The locals hit the fruit, fish, and break market stalls first thing, so I decided to join them today.  I headed down for fruit and veggies and a bit of a walk about before hiking back up for breakfast. 

The kids had some fun with making a fashion show and taking photos...

This is one of the many religious icons along the stairwell in our building.

  

Afterwards, we headed to piazza to sample the pastries.  Still looking for the amazing cookies from pasticceria and gelletaria Buonocore Capri.  We tried a sampler platter, which we dug into on the steps of the Duomo. 

The "Italian fruit" Lily covets that Massimo spoils her with every time he visits us in America.

Afterwards we walked to the parking garage and took out our lovely smelling car to drive to Pompeii.  Our photographer captured some great shots of the walk over and view from the backseat.

The hitchhiking grasshopper we picked up along the way

We gave these two some medicine to help with their car sickness.  Luckily they both fell asleep!

The area surrounding Pompeii is definitely touristy, but the ruins are worth the trip!  Varying levels of interest among our crew with this, but I for one really enjoyed it.  The amount of building and infrastructure with the beautiful detail carved into stone is impressive in its own right, let alone that all of this happened 1,500 years ago.  The steam baths, roads, voting system, - just amazing.  

The body of a dog recovered.

Caden's report - "We went to a village that covered up with dust and dirt and there was a dead dog and pots."

The body of a little boy recovered in Pompeii

Lily's report.  She was very interested and concerned about why the little boy stayed in Pompeii and where his parents were.

The Bascilica

Gia explaining her thoughts on whether or not the priest stayed behind.

Admiring the work of an artist painting amidst the ruins.

Skipping off to return home to our sea house :)

Lily was quite interested in how it happened that residents didn’t leave the city and instead were buried.  Caden continues to inquire about whether or not we are at risk of a volcano erupting now.  Ugh!  We finally made it past the tornado discussion only to dive right into the volcano fears. 

We stopped off at picturesque Ravello for a drink and were lucky enough to witness not one, but two weddings!  We explored the piazza, taking photos of the architecture, walkways, and cute American kids running about :)

Beer and Limoncello we enjoyed

Loved these Itlalian men sharing a bench.  I imagine it to be a ritual where they meet up each day to talk about the days news :)

So cute!  And getting so big!  Gia is growing before my eyes on this trip!

Looking down onto Amalfi

We passed many lemon orchards along the way that help support the lemon industry here that Amalif Coast is known for.

Seeing a church tucked into a cliff side is quite common place, but I still cannot get over the beauty of it, and the puzzlement with how people actually get to it?!?  I was joking with Corey that with church attendance down, I wonder if they are considering relocating the churches to flatland that require no harrowing steps!

Once home, we stopped for our daily gelato fix in the piazza.  The kids took a bath and settled in for a movie after doing a little report on Pompeii to earn some more iPad minutes J

A beautiful tile fresco of the Amalfi coastline

I never tire of this Duomo.  Every angle is stunning.  The kids refer to as the church with the "boring mass".  

You can just see the shoulder of the 'Polizia' officer that was drinking from the fountain next to Gia, was just a bit slow on the draw with the camera.

Gia's demonstrating where the water comes from the statue on this side of the fountain.

The window opposite our door that framed the moon perfectly, which is not showing up in my photo.

Gia, collapsing from exhaustion at the top :)